SHE is just a step away from booking her plane ticket home - but she is determined she will be back with a vengeance.

Filipino nurse Corazon Caro's plea to stay in the UK seems to have fallen on deaf ears and her last hope - an appeal to Home Office minister Tony McNulty - looks to have failed.

Miss Caro's main campaigner Allen Reilly, a Unison branch secretary, wrote to Mr McNulty asking for the A&E nurse to be allowed to make an in-country visa application.

However, Home Office officials have simply written back telling Mr Reilly his support has been "noted" and will be attached to Miss Caro's case file for "any future consideration".

According to Mr Reilly, this means Miss Caro must now return home and apply for a new visa from the Philippines.

This means the nurse, who has been in England for six and a half years, will have to start from the very beginning and even take an English language test. The whole process could take three months.

Mr Reilly said: "This establishment does not seem to care, it is more interested in letting criminals run around. There is no compassion or common sense in the Home Office. She cannot stay here indefinitely with no visa."

The Daily Echo reported how Miss Caro, 29, accidentally allowed her visa and work permit to expire by five months.

Blunder

Home Office officials ordered her out of the country and refused her the right to appeal.

Miss Caro, of Dale Road, Shirley, said: "This is turning into the biggest and most expensive mistake I have ever made in my life. I have not committed any crime - it was just a simple blunder.

"It upsets me when I see that criminals and rapists can stay in this country, but I am treated differently.

"My priority is to get back into work at A&E at Southampton. I have invested so much there, my colleagues are like my family and I have worked there longer than anywhere else in my entire career.

"I am worried about the mortgage on my family's home, as I am the main breadwinner and I am not earning any money.

"I can only hope I can get a new visa as quickly as possible."

Miss Caro's MP, Alan Whitehead, has also written to the Home Office minister on her behalf.

Miss Caro said she would be contacting him today in a last plea before booking her plane ticket home.