THE woman at the centre of a ground-breaking legal challenge to decide if she can ever have a child of her own has been given the right to carry on her fight.

Natallie Evans, from Trowbridge, has been given leave to appeal against the High Court decision taken in October, which ruled test tube embryos she created with a former partner must be destroyed.

Her solicitor, Muiris Lyons of Withy King, said after the hearing: "Natallie is delighted and relieved that her fight to save the embryos is not over. She has never given up hope.

"She now has the opportunity of a full appeal and is confident that the Court of Appeal will accept that she should be allowed to use her embryos to try for the baby that she has always wanted." The six embryos, being stored at a fertility clinic in Bath, were created by Miss Evans and her ex-fiance Howard Johnston, before treatment for ovarian cancer left her infertile.

The couple split up in May 2002 after three years together and three months later Miss Evans received a letter from the clinic stating Mr Johnston had instructed them to destroy the embryos.

At the time Miss Evans said: "When I read the letter I was totally devastated and shocked, I couldn't stop crying.

"That was it, my life was over all I have ever wanted is to be a mum and that is being taken away from me."

"To be told I had cancer and then to be told I couldn't have children was devastating, I felt totally numb."

Miss Evans took her fight to save the embryos through the courts, but in October Mr Justice Wall ruled IVF rules stated both parties had to consent to the embryos being used.

On Friday three Court of Appeal judges agreed that the case raised such important legal issues that it warranted a full appeal.

Miss Evans is arguing that if she had become pregnant naturally the child's father would have no rights to decide the future of the embryo and that it is too late to withdraw consent once embryos had been created.

The date for the full appeal should be announced within the next few weeks but is likely to be in either April or May.