A FORMER Kosovan judge who was forced out of his office at gunpoint and then spent weeks hiding in a forest before being reunited with his family in Burnley is now fighting deportation.

Three generations of the family who escaped from the fighting are now living at a secret address in the Burnley and Pendle area.

The man's supporters claim he was not given a fair hearing when he appeared at an appeal tribunal in Manchester yesterday.

The Rev Sally Thomas, minister of the United Reformed Church in Burnley and official of the Burnley Refugee and Asylum Seekers Support Group said it was unsafe for the judge to return to Kosovo.

His family home had been burned down and he had nowhere to go. She claimed the judge, who is in his early 50s, had not receive a fair hearing because his barrister had been refused the use of a court translator and therefore could not properly prepare his case because of the language problems. She added: "They have a right to a fair hearing."

Mrs Thomas said they would go through the next legal stages which included an application for exceptional leave to remain which would alter his status from that of an asylum seeker to a refugee.

The judge's wife, daughter, young son and mother were airlifted from Kosovo during the conflict.

They are now in Lancashire as refugees and have been permission to stay for a temporary period. The judge is an asylum seeker and has to show exceptional reasons why he should be allowed to remain in the country. It was those reasons, said Mrs Thomas, which were not allowed to be properly explained.

Mrs Thomas said: "The whole family want to go back home when it is safe for them to do so. "

The refugee and asylum seekers support group are to raise the issue with the two local MPs, Peter Pike, Burnley, and Gordon Prentice, Pendle.