A woman from the Caribbean staying illegally in the UK, who says one of the reasons she could not be deported is because her Latvian-born husband doesn’t like spicy food, today insisted: ‘There’s a big difference between liking the odd curry and having hot meals constantly in a humid country.’

Lynthia Calliste, 35, made headlines this week after it emerged she had cited her Latvian forklift truck driver husband finding the local cuisine unpalatable as a reason to avoid being deported to her native Grenada.

And today, speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Lynthia and husband Konstantin Vinakovs doubled down on the spicy food argument.

She told us: ‘I do sometimes cook my husband Grenadian food here in England and it’s true that he’s been on holiday to hot countries.

‘But there is a big difference between going from the odd Grenadian dish and spending two weeks in the sun to having that sort of spicy food constantly in an environment which is hot and humid practically 24/7.’

Lynthia only had permission to stay in Britain for six months when she jetted in with her son in March 2018 – but she stayed illegally in the UK after her visitor visa expired.

She then met and later married Mr Vinakovs, who unlike her has a permanent settled status in the UK.

Now using her married name, Mrs Vinakovs, Lynthia then applied for a marital visa which would have allowed her to reside here – prompting the Home Office to launch an investigation.

She is now fighting resulting moves to deport her from the UK back to her native Grenada by arguing that separating her from her husband would breach Article 8 of the European Convention on Human rights – the right to a family life.

When Home Office officials told Lynthia that this was not a good enough reason for her to reside here as her husband could just as easily join her in Grenada, the mother-of-one pushed back, saying it would cause too much hassle for his family to fly to the Caribbean to visit him.

She argued her husband ‘would be unable to tolerate the cuisine in Grenada’ and ‘worries… the heat’ of the tropical island would be too much for him.

She also said that she can’t go back to Grenada because she has a violent former partner who presents a threat to her life.

But when social media pictures emerged that appeared to show her cooking Grenadian dishes at home and him posting photographs of previous sun-drenched holidays, critics ridiculed her case.

And it was these details that caused her story to make headlines around Britain.

Speaking from their Cambridgeshire home today, she qualified their case, explaining: ‘What I said was that he would find it difficult to adjust, coming from a relatively cooler climate to a very hot one.

‘And the same with the food.

‘For some reason this was picked up on [by the media] following my last immigration hearing.’

Mr Vinakovs agreed with his wife’s argument, saying: ‘My wife does sometimes cook Grenadian food but apart from a chicken dish she does I’m not particularly keen on the cuisine.

‘And, yes, I have been on holiday to hot places like Tenerife and for two weeks I can enjoy the sun and heat.

‘But I’d struggle to live somewhere like Grenada’

Mr Vinakovs, who she married in 2022 after meeting him in Britain, is supporting her case – and insists he does not want to move to Grenada and be forced to give up the fork-lift driving job he has held here for ten years.

He added that Britain is also much cheaper and easier for his mother and sister, who still live in Latvia, to visit than thousands of miles away in the Caribbean.

But Lynthia and her husband are adamant that the issue of spicy food and hot temperatures was only one of a number of reasons she had put forward in her case.

And the most serious was that she had originally fled the island because of a violent and abusive ex-partner – who she feared she might be at risk from again if she were forced to return.

And Mrs Vinakovs also claimed that she now has no home to go back to – because a hurricane destroyed her family house on the island last September.

She told us: ‘The reason I came to England was because an ex-partner was violent towards me. ‘When we broke up he did not take it well and continued to harass and stalk me at work.

‘I got some money together and came to England to get away from him so I could get some space.

‘I stayed with a friend initially but then my son moved over here a year later and we got a place together.

‘I fear that if I go back, my ex will target me again.

‘Plus my family home, the place where I grew up, is no longer standing. It was destroyed in a hurricane which hit Grenada last September.

‘My brother sent me photographs of the rubble. There’s no home for me to go back to.’

Mrs Vinakovs initially moved to Stevenage in Hertfordshire when she arrived in March 2018 on a six-month visitor visa and stayed with a friend.

After her son – now aged 14 – moved over to the UK to join her in December 2019, the pair set up home in Rugeley, Staffordshire.

After she met Mr Vinakovs, 30, on a dating app a few months after arriving in Britain, they eventually set up home together in Cambridgeshire, where they still live.

They married in 2022 at a registry office and Mrs Vinakovs applied for a marital visa, which then prompted the Home Office to launch the investigation into her immigration status.

Her case were initially thrown out during a first-tier immigration tribunal in November, but she has now appealed to the upper tier court.

She is allowed to remain in the UK until she has exhausted all stages of her latest appeal effort.

Mrs Vinakovs added: ‘I’ve built a family in England.

‘All the stress and upheaval [of moving back to Grenada] would be too much, not just for me but my son who is now studying for his GCSEs.

‘His life – our life – is now in England.’

In the previous court hearing, the tribunal found that Mr Vinakovs regularly ate his wife’s Caribbean food, with a judge claiming the Latvian apparently had ‘no particularly difficulty’ with any one style of cuisine.

Judge Mark Blundell, who oversaw the hearing, also claimed there was ‘no evidence’ to show the heat in Grenada would be ‘particularly difficult’ for Mr Vinakovs to handle.

His social media accounts, seen by MailOnline, appear to show him enjoying jet ski rides in the tropical sun.

Judge Blundell said there was ‘no evidence’ he would be ‘unable to live and work in the temperatures which are enjoyed by those who holiday on the island’.

However Mr Vinakovs said: ‘I’ve been in England for the last ten years. I’ve paid taxes throughout and worked hard.

‘I’ve paid for all of my wife’s legal bills. It’s been an incredibly expensive process.

‘Why should I have to leave all that I have worked for? My job is here, my friends are here.

‘Grenada is a tiny island, there just aren’t the sort of employment opportunities that there are here.

‘If I have to go to the Caribbean with my wife I wouldn’t see my mother or sister.

‘At the moment it’s easy for them to visit us in the UK because it costs the equivalent of £50 and takes three hours.

‘To visit Grenada would cost them thousands and it would take more than 15 hours on a plane. They couldn’t do that.’