A Bradford man has been threatened with arrest if he attempts to visit his daughter in the United States.

John Brooke, 55, who has lived and worked in the US for 20 years, was deported in February for violating immigration laws.

US officials told him his residency status had been revoked because he spent most of the last five years out of America.

However the doting dad, who now lives with his parents in Bradford, said ill health and bad luck forced him to return to England. He added any violation of US immigration laws was unintentional.

He said: "My civil liberties have been violated. I was put in a freezing-cold cell for two days before being put on a plane home. I just want to go back to America to find my daughter."

Mr Brooke's problems began in 1985 when he split from Angie Cheung, the American mother of his daughter Demelza.

A Californian court gave them joint custody of Demelza but Mr Brooke was forced to track his former wife across America after she went on the run with Demelza.

When his health began to suffer Mr Brooke returned to England. He then became locked in a trans-Atlantic battle trying to enforce a court order allowing him to see his only child.

In 1999 he re-established contact with his daughter, now 17, and spent nine months travelling Europe with her.

The pair decided to return to America, which was when Mr Brooke found his residency status was no longer valid.

He said: "I should be allowed to stay in America on humanitarian grounds. The regulations are ill-thought out.

"The US authorities have put me through physical and psychological torture. All I have ever wanted is be with my daughter."

Mr Brooke now plans to consult a Bradford solicitor in a bid to regain his residency status in America.

A Foreign Office spokesman said the British Government was powerless to help him, adding: "Mr Brooke was deported from the US on February 28.

"The decision is a matter for the US authorities and one in which we cannot get involved. If the Americans decide he is there illegally there is nothing we can do."

No-one at the US embassy was available for comment.