Fatima Khan is a name everyone of us should be synonymous with but we aren't. We know of the young girl Malala Yusufzai.

We know of Emily Pankhurst, Florence Nightingale, Mother Teresa more recently Doreen Lawrence and some may have heard of the campaigner Dame Helen Newlove.

But Fatima Khan is not at the forefront of our consciousness but most should be.

She has not been awarded any gongs I haven't seen her being presented anywhere or invited to anything what she did was not for self interest or aggrandising therefore it is probably fitting that we do not immediately identify who she is or what she had done.

Fatima Khan is a mother and grand mother but what stands out is her courage and indefatigability in the face every door being closed every avenue barricaded no obstacle was big enough or powerful to stop her in her will to do what she had to do.

In the patriarchal culture that we come from the lengths that Fatima Khan went to could be transposed onto celluloid but the denouement was not to the liking of either.

Fatima Khan was the mother of Abbas Khan. Abbas Khan was a doctor and was selfless in his nature to help people affected by atrocities being carried out throughout the world today.

Had he survived his torture and ordeal he would be without a doubt, be in the Shifa hospital today doing whatever he could using his skills to help the hundreds and thousands of civilians and children indiscriminately massacred by the Zionist regime. His mother tried to ensure that maybe it could happen but despite all her efforts it was not to be.

Abbas Khan went to Turkey to help Syrian refugees in August 2012 and in November he returned but he did not tell his mother he was going to Syria.

On 24 November 2012 he went missing captured by Assad Al Bashar's henchmen and kept in prison, tortured and then the inevitable. Fatima Khan was not prepared to witness the funeral of her own son in her words and like every mother all she wanted was her own son back and she was not going to leave any stone unturned for that to happen.

She called our very own Muslim political martyr, the non elected Baroness Warsi who told her she couldn't help her as it was against government policy the irony. She said Fatima should be happy she even returned her call but unfortunately couldn't help.

Fatima got wind that Nick Griffin wanted to help bring Abbas back yes he of the British National Party. Assad had invited him to start a 'rehabilitation' programme for Islamic extremists and he also told her mothers from Tunisia were crossing the Syrian border for their sons.

This was all she needed to know and with her youngest daughter Sara she flew to Beirut to get a visa to get to Damascus as London was devoid of a Syrian embassy.

In July 2013 she flew to Damascus to find her son for the first time in 57 years.

The British government said they couldn't help find him but within 10 days this old woman in a sari from Hyderabad India with no Arabic just the zeal to find her son and single mindedness to achieve what she set out back in November found him. Handing out photos, leaflets whatever she could on the streets on the 10th day a call came from the Syrian foreign ministry that Abbas was alive and in Fara' Philistine prison, A notorious state sponsored torturing institution.

When Fatima eventually got to see her son there was nothing of him, emaciated tortured beaten, in shackles his nails pulled off. They had charged him with terrorism and was going to be tried in a court. Fatima tried to do everything yet again to get him moved and out of Syria.

She fought his case and got him transferred to Addra prison somewhere with no torture, light and running water. There she visited him everyday smuggling out a letter written by him to William Hague, urging the foreign office to help and get him out.

All the while Fatima paid bribes to judges, lawyers , guards whoever she could to help the cause. She borrowed from family and friends moved to cheaper hotels did whatever she could to get her son out. She stayed in Damascus for six months coming back to London twice. She promised herself that she wasn't going to leave her son there, they were going to come home together.

On 16 December Fatima's world fell apart everything she did to not to witness her sons funeral was in vain.

Abbas was hers no more and the news the family was dreading was now a reality. Abbas would be eventually returned to her. He would be coming back.. Inanimate. The Syrians had murdered him. They told her Abbas had committed suicide but Fatima knew different.

This was her son, she had given birth, nurtured brought up, loved put her own life in danger travelled across the world to find him, found him and now had come to take him home. This would never be.

And to this day she is not going to rest until the truth is finally out like the Hillsborough mothers before her from Doreen Jones, Hilda Hammond, Dolores Steele, Ann Williams the Assad regime will realise the most efficacious force of all is a mothers love.