Jacquelin Santana Lopez is on the brink of homelessness 

A DECISION not to house a political refugee is being reviewed after lawyers warned the council that it is acting unlawfully.

Jacquelin Santana Lopez was granted asylum in the UK after being freed from a  Mexican jail following a high-profile campaign against her detention and torture.

But, despite being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the 25-year-old has been told she does not qualify for “priority need” housing.

She spent 18 months squatting in abandoned buildings in Camden Town and Kentish Town before being put up in temporary accommodation, which she is now being forced to leave.

Lawyers have contacted the council, arguing that its decision is based on “irrational or otherwise inadequate reasoning”.

They say Ms Lopez should qualify for extra support “due to her past experiences of persecution and extended period of homelessness, her current PTSD, which has been caused by those experiences, and her need for high levels of ongoing treatment and support, which would risk being disrupted and derailed by further homelessness”.

The case raises questions about the level of assistance available to those fleeing persecution – as an asylum-seeker Ms Lopez was provided with accommodation by the Home Office, but this was withdrawn once she received refugee status.

Legal documents add that Ms Lopez experienced “persecution by the authorities in Mexico due to her involvement in student politics, including interrogation, physical restraint, detention and threats of violence, including sexual violence”.

In November 2015, Ms Lopez and her boyfriend, who had both campaigned against corruption and poverty, were dragged from their home in Mexico City by armed men in plain clothes. She believes she was being kidnapped and faced being  “disappeared”, but a uniformed officer intervened and the couple were instead taken to a police station.

They were later charged with assaulting and mugging a female police officer, but the case was thrown out by a judge. Her supporters maintain the charges were intended to stifle her political activism.

Lawyers say the council has ignored reports by a consultant psychiatrist who said she had experienced “involuntary and intrusive distressing memories of her time in

Mexico” that were “sustained and exacerbated by her experiences in the UK”.

The psychiatrist added that Ms Lopez was “significantly impaired by her symptoms to the extent that it is difficult for her to engage in substantive therapy, let alone rebuild her self-esteem by some form of work”.

Instead, lawyers say, Camden Council gave “undue weight” to a report written by a doctor from private firm NowMedical, who had not met Ms Lopez and was hired by the council to assess her condition.

The council has asked for time to review the case before lawyers make a court application.

It said it could not comment due to the ongoing review.