End to mother’s American gun hell

Jan 16 2008 by Clare Hickie, Liverpool Daily Post

A MERSEYSIDE woman has won the right to come home from America after being shot in the head and then accused of murdering her husband, who died in the same incident.

Audrey Phillips spent most of last year awaiting trial in a US state penitentiary after being extradited from Britain.

The 45-year-old was eventually found not guilty.

But a bureaucratic blunder by the US authorities meant she had no passport and was left stranded in Texas, dependant on a local priest.

Without a passport, Ms Phillips could not return to Birkenhead, where her four-year-old daughter Fiona is being cared for by relatives.

She said: “It has been hell.”

Ms Phillips’s case was taken up by Birkenhead Labour MP Frank Field. He told foreign secretary David Miliband her treatment had been “appalling”.

Within hours, Ms Phillips could pick up her passport.