PRE-WEDDING joy came to a Keighley bride with the arrival of her overdue passport.

Nursing home worker Charlie Croft received her vital travel document only days after the Keighley News got involved in her plight.

She and husband-to-be Joseph Thorpe were able to jet off to Majorca this week following their wedding last Saturday.

The Keighley News last week told how Charlie, 21, of Broomhill, had not received a passport despite applying four months ago.

The delays continued despite many phone calls by Joseph and Charlie to find out why the application had stalled.

The couple feared that their £2,000 honeymoon would be wrecked.

But after the passport dropped through the door in the morning post last week, Joseph said: “It’s a miracle!

“Charlie was jumping up and down and was crying with excitement.”

Joseph said that within an hour of the Keighley News contacting the matter earlier this month, an official had phoned Charlie to organise a face-to-face meeting in Leeds.

Joseph said: “They asked Charlie lots of questions because it was her first passport, about a family and other details.

“They told us at the interview not to not expect we would get the passport before our honeymoon. But it arrived a few days later.”

Mr Thorpe, 20, who works as a gardener, said that in the past few months the Passport Office had been “dragging its heels”.

The couple sent off their application for the passport at the same time as a separate request for a passport for their 15-month-old daughter, Macie.

Mr Thorpe said they had originally been told the process would only take about six weeks, so they assumed they were applying plenty of time in advance of their holiday.

The Passport Office took the money for both passports three months ago.

Macie's new passport arrived almost two months ago, but there was no word on Miss Croft's application.

In recent weeks the Passport Office has been at the centre of a storm of criticism, after people across the UK reported long delays in its handling of applications.

Government ministers have apologised for the delays, saying applications are at a 12-year high, but unions have blamed the backlogs on staff cuts over the past four years.

A Passport Office spokesman said the application process could take longer if an application had been filled out incorrectly.

He advised travellers not to book their journeys before passports had been issued.