A Muslim mother who fears having her child taken from her under Sharia law if sent back to her homeland can remain in the UK, the House of Lords decided yesterday.

Five law lords ruled the human rights of the Lebanese woman, EM, and her 12-year-old son, AF, who cannot be named for legal reasons, would be "flagrantly violated" and "nullified" if forced to return to Lebanon.

Under Sharia law, her "violent" ex-husband would automatically be granted full custody rights.

The 36-year-old Muslim claimed asylum in the UK in December 2004, saying she had divorced her husband because of his violence and fled from Lebanon in order to keep her child.

Yesterday she successfully challenged a Court of Appeal ruling that upheld the Home Secretary's decision refusing asylum.

Her case was backed by campaign groups Justice and Liberty. After the decision, Liberty's legal director James Welch, said: "How can the government speak of equal treatment in one breath and seek to deport mother and child to face separation under Sharia law in another? The law lords have rightly upheld basic protections which must be available to us all."

Quashing the Home Secretary's decision, Lord Bingham of Cornhill said of EM: "Her evidence, accepted as true in these proceedings, is that during her marriage her husband subjected her to violence, beating her, trying to throw her off a balcony and trying, on one occasion at least, to strangle her.

"She had a mental breakdown. Her husband was imprisoned for theft from her father's shop and, later, for failing to support AF. He ended her first pregnancy by hitting her on the stomach with a heavy vase, saying he did not want children."

The father retained legal custody of AF, but the divorce court ruled that the child should remain in the mother's care until he reached the age of seven.

"Thereafter, Islamic law as applied in Lebanon entitled the father to require that physical custody should be transferred to himself or to a male member of his family."

After the divorce, EM supported herself and AF by running a hairdressing salon.

After AF's seventh birthday, she moved out of her parents' house and lived in hiding before fleeing the country.

The lords agreed that the case for allowing mother and child to remain in the UK was "compelling".

Baroness Hale of Richmond, Lord Carswell and Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Wood also agreed the appeal should be allowed and the Home Secretary's decision quashed.