Jesus Christ people are hysterical. I know some people are so absolutely desperate to find evidence we're turning into Nazi Germany that they're gleefully grabbing at any story which they think shows everybody is being deported to justify their hysteria.
The reality is probably much more prosaic. They've been married for a long time and share children. The burden of evidence they asked for would have been pretty low and very easy to provide for a genuine 27 year marriage. So evidence of financial links and support, administrative links like remaining in each other's will, evidence of communication like emails and phone records, Skype chats, texts, etc, photos of them together attending family events or on holiday, evidence of family holidays and events. They'll also have asked for evidence of their life here in the UK, so evidence they share finances, he's the one supporting her if she can't work, they live at the same property and share a life. This sort of thing would be a doddle to provide for those in a genuine 27 year marriage and they've not been able to do it. That really does raise red flags.
The press love these stories because they are able to sensationalise them so much. It's the same as the 'social services took my baby for no reason' stories. They know that because of confidentiality and data protection they can't counter the stories with anything other than the baldest official statement. So the press get to create a sensational story because it only shows one side of the story in the best possible light with no counter argument which lets them create a moral panic about the way migration is being handled.
As she's being deported it's likely that if the home office was able to expand on what 'no evidence of an ongoing relationship' means we would find out none of the above exists and quite possibly that there were indications otherwise like evidence they lived at separate addresses or had other partners.
But people who want to extrapolate that this case shows that the UK is indulging in unjustified mass deportations are always going to make excuses like the evidence being too tough to meet or just being disregarded. But if spouses are being deported willy nilly unjustly where are the other cases backing this up?
I don't see the statement about phoning and Skyping as any more than a recognition they claim to be in a relationship rather acknowledging that they are.
Really, if you're claiming you've had a 27 year relationship and you can't evidence it there is something really wrong in your story.