'The war couldn't split us up so why should social services?' say devoted couple who fear they could be separated after 60 years

They fell in love during World War II and have been together ever since.

So Thomas and Iris Bashford should have been looking forward to marking 60 years of commitment and devotion with their diamond wedding anniversary.

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But social services officials have given them the devastating news that they could be living apart by the time their anniversary comes around later this year.

The couple have been together for 66 years. They met just before Mr Bashford joined the Navy in 1942 and will celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary in October.

He went to war aboard a minesweeper in the Mediterranean with a picture of his 16-year-old sweetheart in his wallet and they married two years after his return in 1946.

Mrs Kotchie, 58, said: 'It was suggested dad could go to a home but funding would not be available for mum.

'I feel pretty grim about the future,' he said. 'The war didn't split us up but now this could. I never thought I would see the day when I was separated from my wife. We have both worked our whole life, paying into the system, and I am not happy that we are being treated like this.'

Daughter fails math test, so dad thrown in jail

A northern Kentucky man is in jail today – serving a 180-day sentence – because his 18-year-old daughter failed a math test and didn't get her General Equivalency Diploma, or GED, as a previous court order required.

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Even Brian Gegner's ex-wife agrees the judge's decision is absurd.

"They probably should have punished me if they were going to punish anybody," said Brittany's mother Shana Roach. "Because she did live with me at the time, but because he had the custody, that's why he's being punished. But I don't understand the punishment altogether because she's going to school, she's been going for four months. The only thing that's holding her back is she can't pass her math test."

Butler County Juvenile Court Judge David Niehaus ordered Gegner to jail for contributing to the delinquency of a minor by not following a court order which required Gegner to be sure his daughter got her GED.

Senior judges today launched an unprecedented attack on a council they accused of "disgraceful" conduct over the adoption of a young girl against the wishes of her father, who was hospitalised at the time.