Homeless people are to be given thousands of pounds in compensation after the Home Office wrongly threatened to deport them.

EU migrants who were picked up under a previous Government policy to use rough sleeping as grounds for removal could claim the money after the approach was declared unlawful by the High Court last year.

Figures obtained by the BBC suggest that 698 homeless EU nationals were removed from the country during the year to May 2017.

Around 45 European citizens are now thought to be pursuing claims for compensation after being illegally detained and deported.

The policy to treat rough sleeping as an abuse of EU treaty rights was introduced two years ago by the Home Office, but it was scrapped after a judicial review ruled that it was discriminatory and unlawful.

In some cases former detainees could receive more than £10,000 in compensation after being held in detention centres for weeks without knowing what the outcome of their cases would be.