FOUR months ago, he suffered the devastation of tragically losing his wife just days after she gave birth to their first child.

Now David Pickett is determined to fight on in the battle to persuade the authorities to allow his sister-in-law to help care for baby Christopher in their hour of need.

As reported in yesterday's Daily Echo, late on Monday night Nerissa Dizon was reluctantly forced to return home to the Philippines after being ordered to leave Britain by the Home Office.

An administrative error on an emergency visa, issued to allow the 24-year-old trained nanny to attend her sister Jasmine's funeral, meant that she was unable to apply to extend her stay.

Having seen how hard civil engineer David, 42, of Pennington Close, Colden Common, was finding it to balance work and caring for his new son alone, she had offered to step in to care for the baby.

However, immigration officials have put a halt to her selfless suggestion, which involved quitting a job back home and leaving behind family and friends, by insisting that it would constitute her taking employment.

Nerissa was ordered to leave Britain as soon as her visitor's visa expired, and was told that she should return home and then reapply to come back.

Despite having the backing of his local MP, priest, and community groups, David now fears a recent rule change will mean that the application is doomed to failure because of a new quota system.

"The plan is that she's got all the documents to apply for a work visa, and we'll do that with various letters of support, because they've said that's the sort of thing she needs," he said.

Strong "We'll make our case as strong as we can and go through that process, and see how far it gets.

"We can hope."

Even if the Home Office does look favourably at the application, it is likely to be several months before Nerissa can return to help care for Christopher.

When David married Jasmine, they were forced to spend five months in separate countries while Jasmine's spouse's visa was processed.

In the meantime, he is now enlisting the help of family and friends to care for his young son and continue working, but he is worried that if Nerissa is not allowed back, he cannot afford a 24-hour nanny and could be forced to give up work.

"This'll be a way of dealing with things for the time being without having to make any drastic decisions," said David.

"But in the long term it's not fair on my parents to ask them to take on the majority share of care, and it's not fair on Christopher to keep moving him around."