A priest has hit out after a dying 95-year-old woman was taken to America against the wishes of her family in the UK, writes David Horne.

Father Michael Woodgate entered the row over great-grandmother Johanna Gale when he spoke at her funeral.

Mrs Gale's son, Tony, who lives at Hook Norton, attended the service at Bearsted, near Maidstone, in Kent, and insisted his mother had been heartlessly taken away.

She had been suffering from cancer and died in May after being secretly flown to Williamsburg, Virginia, by her daughter Kathleen Lawrence. Mrs Gale's body was flown home and on Friday about 60 mourners attended her funeral.

Fr Woodgate told the congregation: "Our heartfelt sympathies go out to her relatives in this country who were cruelly deprived of the consolation of bidding her farewell."

Mr Gale, the director of an Oxfordshire company, claimed that his mother had been smuggled out of the country when she was unwell.

"I would absolutely echo the priest's comments. It was a cruel thing to do to our mother," he said. "Taking her away deprived her English relatives of seeing her in her last days."

Police in America said that her death was due to natural causes.