A CHINESE family are appealing against a Home Office decision to deport them - after their bid to stay through the new Human Rights Act failed.

Su Lian Hu, his wife Xiao Fang and their three children Miao, 16, Jing, 14, and 11-year-old Zhao, have been told that Home Secretary Jack Straw does not agree that deportation would breach the youngsters' rights to an education.

The family from Dukinfield, who have been fighting to stay in Britain for eight years since Su Lian Hu helped students involved in the bloody Tiananmen Square protest, were extremely upset.

They were also angry as it did not consider the great support offered by the children's schools - Astley High School and Lyndhurst Primary - and the community in Dukinfield.

The two headteachers have been at the forefront of the campaign since 1997, when the children burst into tears as they handed in notes to say they would not be coming back to school as they were being deported. The schools have vowed to ban any officials who attempt to take the children against their will.

Lyndhurst Primary head Dail Williams said: "I feel angry and helpless.

"It says at the bottom of this Home Office letter 'building a safe and tolerant society'. That's not what's happening here.

"Zhao has been very quiet. It's the fourth time he has brought in such a letter.

"His schoolmates are also very upset. They have grown up with Zhao and they like him. And their letters and petition of 3,000 signatures to the Home Office have not even been acknowledged."

The family's solicitor, George Brown, at the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit, has drafted grounds for appeal and will be calling in expert witnesses.

"I am surprised the Home Secretary has not taken the opportunity to listen to the voice of the local community," he said, "and instead, has hidden behind the legalistics of the case."