IT is yet another example of the Tories’ hostile environment which has seen a Scot and his American partner split apart through Border Patrol heavy-handedness.

And all Katie Fennen wants is to enjoy the home she and Alan Gibb created in Aberdeen, along with its gardens and their allotment.

The pair met in her home city of Houston, Texas, in 2012 while Gibb was on assignment there and quickly became a couple.

When he returned to Aberdeen, Fennen, 59, made the “difficult decision” to leave her life in the US and join him in Scotland, and in January 2016 she was granted her Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) and partner visa on a five-year route to gain leave to remain (LTR).

However, she returned to the US in September last year to look after her younger sister, who was seriously ill and was so involved in caring for her sibling that she inadvertently missed the BRP renewal date of October 5.

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This only emerged as she was preparing to come back to the UK in November 2018, but she was heartened by advice on the Home Office website that said where the renewal had been missed, through death or serious family illness, it could still be processed providing it was accompanied by supporting documentation.

Armed with all the paperwork, Fennen arrived at Heathrow on November 19 and, after explaining her story to a Border Patrol officer – who ignored her additional documents – found herself detained and threatened with being sent back to the US.

Eventually, and after several calls between Border Patrol and Gibb, she was granted a six-month entry as a “visitor” and allowed to catch a flight to Aberdeen – where the couple set about renewing her BRP, which was subsequently refused. Fennen told The National the refusal was based entirely on the officer’s statement, which was incorrect and, according to the Home Office website, the renewal submission could only be made online from within the UK.

“I was truthful on the application stating the BRP had expired,” she said. “I answered why, I was allowed to continue.

“I was truthful in Heathrow Passport Control that my BRP had expired, I could only renew online from within the UK but I was detained. I understood only after the refusal was given, I was admitted as a ‘visitor’ to my home country of five years.”

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She added: “I have been ‘bouncing’ between my children’s homes, my friend’s home, and am now with my older sister in Seattle. I simply want to go home. To the home Alan and I created together. To our gardens, our allotment, to our spur of the moment, no plans made, car trips all over Scotland. I want to be in my kitchen cooking for my partner … packing us a lunch as we get ready for a walk, looking out our windows at the colours in our yard … I want my life back.”

Gibb, 60, said he had raised the matter with his MP Ross Thomson and Maureen Watt, his MSP, and was convinced it was a “simple, administrative error, blown out of all proportion”.

He said his partner had gone back to the US only to comply with the six-month visitor stamp entered on her passport, and added: “We had both fully anticipated and expected that the follow-up intervention by our MP with the Immigration Minister would have resolved the issue within that period, and long before that required departure date arrived, but the process and system totally failed us.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “All applications are considered on their individual merits, on the basis of the evidence available and in line with UK immigration rules.”