A family who brought mayhem to a district of Newport are being allowed to return, despite a local housing association getting an earlier injunction preventing them from doing so.

Appeal court judges ruled this week that the injunction granted against mother-of-five Katrina Case was unlawful as she no longer had a tenancy agreement with Medina Housing Association.

Medina had obtained the injunction against Ms Case banning her from the area because they claimed she and her children disrupted the quiet life of residents living in Highfield Road in the town.

It was said that the family caused persistent noise and other disturbance and that they had intimidated other residents.

Granting the injunction against her in October at Newport Crown Court, Judge Thompson QC said there was a "continuing risk that even after being compelled to forfeit possession of the premises, she would go on behaving in the same sort of antisocial way to those who had been her neighbours."

Judge Thompson had also previously granted Medina repossession of the family home on the grounds that Ms Case had breached her tenancy agreement.

However, lawyers for 29-year-old Ms Case challenged the injunction in the Appeal Court claiming the judge had no power to grant it, since there was no longer any contract between Ms Case and the housing association.

Appeal Court judge Lord Justice Kay agreed that the injunction was unlawful, saying that it could only be in force while the Case family were still tenants.

Speaking about the original injunction, Lord Justice Kay added: "I understand why this experienced judge was concerned, having heard the history, for the wellbeing of other tenants in the locality.

"But, Parliament has not seen fit to give any other statutory power which would enable a housing authority to take action in circumstances such as these."

However, he went on to issue a stern warning to Ms Case that this judgement was not a licence for her to go on making people's lives a misery and that should she cause problems again "the criminal law will have its say".