A High Court judge has issued an urgent international plea for the return home of four Banbury children who have been kept in Pakistan by their father for more than six months.

The children's mother, Asma Akhtar, was granted an order in July making the children wards of court and requiring their immediate return.

The wardship order was linked to a law enforcement protocol between the English and Pakistani legal authorities in the hope of securing the children's return to the UK.

But the father, Mohammed Zahoor Akhtar, obtained court orders in Pakistan preventing the removal of the children from that country.

As a result, the children - Halima, 10, her four-year-old sister Harja and their brothers Ali, five, and Haier, two - have still not been returned to Banbury.

On October 31, Family Division judge Mr Justice Ryder gave permission for the case to be raised in the House of Commons at the instigation of their mother.

Now the judge has lifted reporting restrictions, which normally apply to cases involving children, in the hope that wider publicity will secure their safe return.

The parents and the children - all UK citizens - went to Dubai during school holidays.

With the mother's consent, the children were then taken to Pakistan by their father for the remainder of the vacation on the understanding that they would return to the UK on April 26.