A woman who moved back to England after years abroad has had her benefit withdrawn under controversial residency rules.

Jennifer Stacey moved to Brighton and Hove when an 18-year relationship with her French partner ended. Her eldest son and two grandchildren also live in the city.

However, she failed the habitual residence test, introduced in 1993 to cut down on so-called benefit tourists. She was then disqualified from getting benefits for her first three months in England.

She also faces losing her temporary home next month because Brighton and Hove Council has ruled she made herself intentionally homeless when she left France.

Her plight typifies problems faced by many people returning from abroad, according to campaigners who want the residence tests scrapped.

Ms Stacey, originally from London, had been living near Paris for 18 years before moving back to England with her 17-year-old son.

Brighton and Hove Council found bed and breakfast accommodation for the pair but she was disqualified from benefit for three months because she did not pass the residence test.

Ms Stacey, 54, said: "I came back to my home country to make a new life. I am habitually resident, I am British, my family are here and I have come back home and this is where I am staying.

"The council let me stay and paid the rent but they have now decided I failed the habitual residence test and say I have to go."

She will go before an appeals tribunal today to try to recover the three months' lost benefit.

She has been helped by the Brighton Unemployed Workers' Centre, where Shanti Haft said the residence tests deterred British people working abroad from coming home.

The Benefits Agency, which administers the test, said it could not comment on individual cases but people had to prove they were habitually resident in the UK to claim income-related benefit.

Brighton and Hove Council, which will stop supporting Ms Stacey and her son on February 23, said she had made herself intentionally homeless when she returned from France.