AFTER being apart for 18 months, a father has been reunited with his teenage daughter and his wife.

Craig Stock had been living alone in his native Canada since early 2018 after being denied permission to move to England to join his wife of 20 years, Rachel Gair, and their daughter, Betsy, in Hexham.

After months of battling in the courts, an appeal to allow Craig to return to England, where he had previously lived and worked, was successful in September.

He has now settled in the Tyne Valley and was delighted to be back living with his family.

“I’m really pleased to be back with my family. It took almost two years so you can only imagine how glad I am,” he said. “Look at every emotion in the dictionary and I went through that.

“I love being in Northumberland and Hexham is a lovely town. My daughter goes to school and my wife works here, and there’s loads of great spots with Hadrian’s Wall just 10 minutes away.”

Rachel was equally as overjoyed to have Craig living in England.

She said: “Craig has come over and it’s not like the other times where he will be going back to Canada soon.

“This time he has come and is staying, and Betsy is loving having her dad watch her play football and go swimming together.

“We’re all waking up together and Betsy is going to school and us to work, and it is like we’re a normal family again.”

During the fight for Craig to be allowed to live in England, an online petition received close to 100,000 signatures.