Fadile Parmaksiz, 33, was flown to Germany with her three children on July 5 despite a last-minute injunction obtained by her solicitor blocking the family’s deportation.

Mr Justice Collins, sitting in the High Court in London, said there was "substantial blame" attached to the Home Office over its handling of the case, though he decided against holding any of the individual immigration officers involved in contempt of court.

There had been a "lamentable lack of any proper system" to deal with court injunctions that had been granted to lawyers outside normal working hours, the judge said.

Mrs Parmaksiz’s lawyer secured the injunction by telephone the night before her flight to Germany but his efforts to notify the Home Office were unsuccessful. "Their system was so defective that he wasn’t able to stop, or to give the necessary information in order to avoid the removal," the judge said.

Mr Justice Collins said he was "glad to hear" that steps had been taken to provide a dedicated telephone number for solicitors to contact the Home Office in relation to out of hours injunctions.

He said the Home Office had apologised to the court for the breach.

Mrs Parmaksiz, who claims she would be persecuted in Turkey, travelled to Britain via Germany and arrived in July 2002 with her husband and two children. She has since been flown back to Britain and been granted permission to apply for a judicial review of the decision to deport her, to be heard at the High Court at a later date.

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