A transgender woman has won a legal fight to force the government to pay her state pension from 60 after a European Court ruling.

The married woman, who cannot be named, could now be eligible for around £30,000 in back payments after the court ruled that the refusal to pay her pension at 60 was discriminatory.

She was told she could not have it until 65, the men's state pension age, because she did not have a gender recognition certificate confirming her status as female.

A devout Christian, the woman, now 70, was unable to obtain a certificate because under the law at the time doing so would have meant divorcing her wife or annulling the marriage.

She argued that she wished to stay married to her wife "in the sight of God".

She sued the Department for Work and Pensions for five years of state pension which she said she had unfairly missed out on because of the government's stance.

The European court of justice ruled that the law is discriminatory as it "treats less favourably a person who has changed gender after marrying than it treats a person who has retained his or her birth gender and is married."