Visa refusal means married couple live 4,000 miles apart

Hitesh Maggu met Chavi Meattle while she was studying in London and the pair married last year

A man has spent the first year of his marriage living 4,000 miles from his wife after she was denied a UK visa.

Hitesh Maggu, who lives in Telford, Shropshire, married Indian national Chavi Meattle in 2017 and they applied for a spouse's visa.

But their application was turned down due to concerns about the couple's income and queries over divorce papers from Mr Maggu's first marriage.

They say "ill-judged decisions" by case workers saw the visa wrongly refused.

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Mr Maggu, 35, met his wife-to-be in October 2015 while she was studying at the London School of Economics.

He has had UK citizenship since January 2017, but has lived in the country for almost a decade. They married in India on Valentine's Day last year.

The visa bid was refused in October and they started an appeal the following month, but say they have heard nothing since.

Mr Maggu said: "I have no personal life. Two years ago I bought a house to live in with my wife but it is just empty.

"We have a 'Skype' relationship, we only see each other through video calls."

Evidence of divorce

In its decision notice, seen by the BBC, the Home Office said the couple did not earn enough - income of at least £18,600 a year.

It said checks with HMRC showed Mr Maggu had been paid a gross total of £12,000 in 2016/17.

But Mr Maggu, a director of a private limited IT consultancy company, said he had made £46,000 gross in that financial year through a mixture of salary and dividends and the dividends had not been taken into account.

The decision notice also said Mr Maggu had not provided acceptable evidence of his earlier divorce, which was granted in India in November 2016. He is also challenging this.

When contacted by the BBC, the Home Office said it would not comment on the case because the appeal was still in progress.