A Watford family man, jailed for travelling across Europe to help his jihadi cousin return home, cannot complain about his tough sentence, top judges have ruled.

Tahir Farooq Bhatti was jailed for 21 months at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday, February 6, after he admitted assisting an offender to return to the UK.

Lord Justice Treacy said Bhatti, 45, responded to pleas from the family of Imran Khawaja to get the 27-year-old home after he was sucked into the Syrian war zone.

Khawaja, who was jailed for 12 years after he admitted preparing for acts of terrorism and other charges, was notoriously captured on social media posing with severed heads.

But Khawaja's family claimed he had become desperate to flee the war-ravaged land where he had attended jihadi training camps.

There was evidence that he had faked his own death online in order to sneak back into the UK, and he had also complained about the lack of luxuries, such as cocoa butter, overseas.

Bhatti, of Clarke Way, Watford, helped him out by travelling to meet him in Serbia before driving him back to England - where the pair were intercepted at Dover.

His case reached the Appeal Court today as Bhatti challenged his sentence, claiming it was far too harsh.

His legal team argued the judge took insufficient account of the "human dilemma" faced by Bhatti - who was acting "humanely" in a bid to help out his family.

But Lord Justice Treacy, sitting with Mr Justice King and Mrs Justice Elisabeth Laing, said that the "length of the sentence reflected all the circumstances".

"Khawaja was involved in criminal activities of a particularly serious nature and Bhatti was aware of that," she added.

"He gave him sufficient help to avoid his detection and prosecution...we don't accept that he had limited knowledge of Khawaja's activities abroad".

Dismissing the appeal, the judge concluded: "We remain unpersuaded that there was anything wrong with this sentence."