A grieving Cambridge family were prevented from attending a funeral when the Home Office failed to get their passports to them in time.

The passports of Nick Holt, his wife Kajitpan Nampila, originally from Thailand and son Thanakon were with the Home Office when Ms Nampila’s elderly mother who still lives in Thailand became gravely ill.

The family immediately contacted the Home Office to urgently request their passports but while waiting for an answer sadly Ms Nampila’s mother died.

The devastated family were still desperate to get back the passports in order that they could fly to Thailand and attend the funeral.

Mr Holt offered to drive to any location to pick up the passports. But despite numerous calls and emails to the Home Office by Mr Holt and his local MP Daniel Zeichner it proved impossible to retrieve them.

Daniel Zeichner MP said: “The Home Office need to show some compassion. Stopping grieving relatives from flying to be with their family at the saddest of times is just terrible.  Mr Holt and Ms Nampila want to make sure this doesn’t happen to other families too.”