The Angus woman at the centre of a long-running immigration saga has finally been given UK residency.
Angela Faye Smith, 46, of Arbroath, has been given residency for the next five years following an 18-month battle with the Home Office.
The Angus Council worker, originally from the US, received the residence card as she got ready to spend Christmas with partner Matthew Tribble and her daughter Ceilidh.
She said: “I’m still bitter that I lost 18 months of my life and £6,000 of Matthew’s earnings but we will get over it.
“I’ll keep fighting because although my battle is won for now, there are still thousands of families suffering the separation and financial destitution imposed by the Home Office.”
Angela first came to the country in the late 1980s as the wife of a member of the US military. She married her second husband, who is from Arbroath, in 1997 but left him in 2008.
She planned to buy a house and marry Matthew before the Home Office turned their world upside down. Angela’s latest visa application was refused at the beginning of the year.
Her solicitor Jamie Kerr formally lodged an appeal against the decision and the first tier tribunal was heard in Glasgow in August.
Although a judgment was given following the hearing, the judge granted an anonymity order on the case, meaning the outcome could not be reported.