Yes of course a letter needs to be as long as it means to be, but keep in mind that the decision maker has a very short time to consider the application and if to issue a visa if not, if not then they also have to draft a refusal notice.

The ECO doesn't want to read through reams of sponsorship letters, they want the facts that will enable to make a decision easily, whilst your three pages of A4 were successful in your case, I suspect the visas were issued despite the long stories rather than because of them.

Three A4s, paragraphed which form the map to the whole visa application is not too long in my opinion. It can be read in less than two and a half minutes. It explains proof of relationship, family history and sponsor info. It is succinct and to the point with no extraneous information. Page 4 is a list of everything in the application and allows the ECO to get to the relevant piece of information in a few seconds. It has worked for my now wife three times in less than a year.

The job of the applicant is to make the job easier for them and, dare I say, almost make the decision for them.

I 100% agree with this but I would swap the word, applicant, for the word sponsor in our situation.

As far as the Mike1983 is concerned I would suggest that the sponsor letter needs to do three things. Show that they were together prior to the first visa application. Show that his girlfriend made a genuine mistake and didn't lie for the first application. If they used a visa agent for either application, explain that they took bad advice, when the application was made. I would be happy to write something but it would take a week or so.

if you would write me something that would be great and much apprieciated as I've spoke to someone legal about this and they said they've lost all trust and it now seams impossible to resolve

I'm away until mid week and then have a very busy few days. I'll PM you when I get back. Where are you based?

I'm in manchester, thanks for the help if you gave me an email I could supply toy with the 2 refusal notes

when doing an application for Mr girlfriend there's there question how much will this trip be costing you or something along those lines, do I answer nothing to this as I'm being her sponsor?