ONE of the country's most prominent clergymen is backing a bid to stop an Iranian family being deported to their homeland.

The Bishop of Winchester, the Right Reverend Michael Scott-Joynt, is the latest to add his name to the campaign and has written to the Home Office asking that Lisa and Khalil Khameneh and their 16-year-old daughter be allowed to continue to live in England.

As previously reported in the Daily Echo, the family moved to Southampton two years ago after being given six month visas to come to Britain to get treatment for Lisa's chronic lung problem. They have since had their appeals for asylum refused and were told early last week that they would be deported within days.

Last Friday the Khamenehs, who have converted to Christianity from Islam, were seeking sanctuary in the city's mother church after hearing rumours that immigration officials were about to swoop.

A last-minute intervention from Southampton Test MP Alan Whitehead, resulted in the family being given a week's reprieve.

Mr Whitehead faxed a letter to ministers late that night after seeing the family's despair as they took refuge in the vestry of St Mary's church, St Mary Street.

They had been taken there by the Rev Ian Johnson, team rector of Southampton. For several hours Lisa, 48, who is blind and receiving regular medical treatment here, was inconsolable.

Her daughter Ariana, described as a model student who is about to sit her final GCSE exam at Millbrook Community School, comforted her parents.

Today Rt Rev Scott-Joynt joined a chorus of people asking the government to reconsider the family's case.

In his letter to Home Secretary Charles Clarke he asked that the family be allowed to stay on compassionate grounds, adding: "There is, as I am sure you will recognise, a very high probability that all three will be at grave risk of ill-treatment at best on their return to Iran."

Speaking to the Daily Echo, he applauded Rev Johnson for removing them from their home in Shirley to seek sanctuary in the church in a bid to delay immigration officers while he had chance to highlight their cause.

"I think he has done all the right and proper things. He was trying to find a way of getting the Home Office to look again. I want to offer any possible support I can."

Meanwhile, Rev Johnson is continuing to work on their case and is hopeful he has found a lawyer to appeal the Home Office decision against the Human Rights Act.

"I have been involved in more than 100 asylum seeker appeals and this one is the most heart rending ever.

"I need to find any way possible to keep this in the public eye and to ensure that justice and compassion prevails."