A Bradford couple forced to go into hiding under the threat of death will meet a Government minister to try to ensure their safety.

Keighley Labour MP Ann Cryer has helped set up the meeting with Home Office Minister Mike O'Brien after she was approached by the couple, Jack and Zena Briggs.

The couple faced the death threats when they fled Bradford after Zena's Pakistani family tried to force her into marrying her Pakistani cousin.

Family members were vehemently opposed to Jack, who is white and non-Muslim.

The couple have spent years living at secret addresses in hiding from private detectives, bounty hunters and hitmen.

They will meet Mr O'Brien, who has responsibility for immigration and race relations, in a desperate bid for help.

Mrs Cryer, the couple's "foster MP" - they are unable to approach the MP where they now live because it would identify their new home - said it was unlikely the Government would offer financial assistance. But she said Mr O'Brien would look at ways to improve their security.

Mrs Cryer told MPs earlier this year: "To this day a death sentence is hanging over them and through the years this otherwise decent Bradford Asian family have employed private detectives, bounty hunters and hitmen to seek out their once much-loved daughter for the purpose of killing her and her husband."

Mr O'Brien said the young couple were caught in a "terrible dilemma" and deserved support from their ethnic community and wider society.

The couple's book, Runaways, published in 1997, told how they fled from town to town, in real fear of reprisals. With the book about to be released in paperback, they are still in hiding.

In the epilogue to Runaways, published by Vista, Zena says: "We're always watching, waiting, scared inside."

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