Ref. 27436-15UKRAINIAN teenager Inna Haville faces being sent back to her home country because the English family she is staying with has lost an appeal to look after her.

But Mark and Melanie Haville, from Sevenhampton, near Highworth, who rescued Inna, 19, from the squalor of an orphanage in Ukraine three years ago, have vowed to keep fighting for her to remain in their care.

She is enjoying a settled family life with their five other children and is studying for a GCSE in Spanish and GNVQ in information technology at New College in Swindon.

But Inna has just been told to leave the UK.

Home Office Minister Beverley Hughes has written to North Swindon MP Michael Wills claiming that there are "no exceptionally compelling reasons" why Inna should stay.

Mr and Mrs Haville appealed on compassionate grounds to the Home Office a move supported by Mr Wills.

Mark Haville, who runs NPN Videos, which makes Christian films, is devastated the appeal has been rejected.

He said: "We are so upset and frustrated, words cannot describe it. Inna is a lovely girl but she could not fend for herself in Ukraine. Her life would be nothing there."

Inna was allowed to stay in the UK on a student visa. She has not lived with her own parents since she was discarded to an orphanage, aged 11.

Mr Haville fears Inna could not survive in her homeland, where he claims discrimination is rife.

He said: "She would struggle to find work because she has been in an orphanage. Inna could end up living in the sewers, forced into a life of prostitution. There is no welfare system."

Mr Haville described how temperatures in the capital city Kiev drop to minus 25 degrees Celsius and snow falls up to 6ft deep.

He said: "Inna could freeze to death. It is just so frightening. The Government is showing no compassion and we are being driven out of our minds with worry."

The Havilles tried in vain to formally adopt Inna, who changed her surname from Melanych to Haville last November.

Mr Haville first met Inna in 1998, when she was 14, while making a charity visit to an orphanage in a rural village called Mihaiyvka.

There the children shared clothes, had no possessions, little food and were being "bred as slave labour for factories and farms."

He paid an elderly Ukrainian couple to look after Inna, whose father was serving 14 years in jail.

Mark and Melanie brought Inna to the UK in 2000 on a two-year student visa and she has since become a sister to Kirsty, 17, Daniel, 14, Hannah, 13, Samuel, six, and Joshua, four.

They have tried every legal avenue to prevent her from returning to the Ukraine. Mr Haville said: "We all love her so much and cannot understand why the Government is being so obdurate. It is like dealing with robots and we simply don't know what to do next."

Mr Wills said: "I am very sorry about this decision and had hoped the Home Office would take a different view. I am talking with the family about finding the best way forward."

Victoria Tagg