A Blackburn-born man has told of his anger after a Home Office blunder left him locked up in an immigration centre, facing deportation to Pakistan.

Sabbir Ahmed was wrongly registered as a foreign prisoner when he was sentenced to a two-month custodial sentence for driving while disqualified, which he served at Belmarsh Prison.

On completing the sentence, he was transferred to the Haslar Immigration Removal Centre in Hampshire, awaiting deportation.

Mr Ahmed, who has Indian parents, was told by the Home Office he was being deportation to Pakistan despite his protestations that he was born and bred in the UK.

After being detained for 48 days, he was freed when campaigners on his behalf retrieved his British passport and birth certificate from his flat in east London to prove he was born in Blackburn.

Student Mr Ahmed said: "It was so frustrating, it just felt like I was banging my head against a wall.

"I was screaming my innocence to anyone who would listen and they were trying to deport me to a country where I've got no ties. I've never been to Pakistan. But no matter how much I protested my innocent it didn't matter."

Frances Pilling, chairwoman of the charity Bail for Immigration Detainees, said: "They chose not to pursue any avenue of investigation at all.

"The whole thing could have been sorted out by one call to the Passport Office but they just decided that they were right and he was a liar so they did nothing at all."

The Home Office revealed that the Government missed its target to deport failed asylum seekers in the final quarter of last year.

Ministers were 10per cent behind their public performance target to remove more failed applicants than the number of "unfounded" cases arriving in the same period.

A Home Office spokes-man said it could not comment on individual cases but added: "We would not seek to remove anyone with British citizenship.

"However there are circumstances where an individual subject to removal or deportation proceedings claiming to be a British citizen or to have an entitlement to British citizenship may be required to provide supporting evidence to prevent removal from the UK."