Home Secretary Jack Straw has rejected the pleas of 21 sets of Bradford parents who had hoped to be reunited with their "forgotten" children after 30 years.

Jack Straw has turned down the families, despite a long campaign backed by 75 MPs, including Marsha Singh and Anne Cryer.

The parents were among the first wave of immigrants to Bradford from the Indian sub-continent in the 1960s but because there were so many bogus immigration applications their children were not allowed to follow them to Britain.

Now, with DNA testing to prove their parentage, they had hoped the Labour Government would allow the 750 to 1,000 grown-up children a chance to be with their parents, who live across Britain.

Abu Bashir, of the Bangladesh Porishad, in Bradford, who has led the campaign locally, said he would fight on.

"I am very disappointed. There is no sense of justice in what they have done," he said.

And Bradford West MP Marsha Singh said: "I will certainly be getting back to Parliament and will continue to campaign for these families to be united."

The Telegraph & Argus's sister paper Asian Eye broke the story of the "forgotten children" in November last year.

Among the 21 families affected in Bradford, the case was highlighted of Jamshor Ali and his wife Fuljan Bibi, who have lived in the city for three decades and consider Bradford to be home. Yet their four grown-up children are still in Bangladesh.

They have seen them during short holidays which they can only afford every six or seven years.

Mrs Ali said she often cried at night because they were not united as a family and have had to grow old without them.

A Home Office spokesman said it was not practical to change policy "at this late stage".

"We have considerable sympathy for those who were distressed by adverse decisions when they were children."

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