Home Secretary John Reid, in one of his last acts as Home Secretary, ducked out of a meeting with a Sussex MP about Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Deghayes.

Mr Reid had been scheduled to meet Brighton Kemptown MP Des Turner in his Commons office to receive letters of support for Mr Deghayes and to discuss the prisoner's prospects for returning to the UK when released.

But when Dr Turner turned up at the appointed time on Monday (JUN25) evening he was told the meeting would not be going ahead.

Instead, the Home Secretary, who is widely believed to have announced his retirement from cabinet to avoid being sacked by incoming Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said he was busy preparing for his handover to his successor, whom Mr Brown is expected to appoint this week.

Mr Deghayes, a 37-year-old Brighton father, has been held in the notorious US prison camp in Cuba for more than four years without charge.

Dr Turner wants to ensure that, if the US can be persuaded to release Mr Deghayes, he will be allowed to return to the UK, and not sent back to Libya, from which his family fled in the Eighties and where it is feared he could face further human rights abuses.

The MP said he would be seeking a fresh meeting with the new Home Secretary at the earliest opportunity.