Revealed: Courts Let Dangerous Foreign Criminals Stay In Britain

Telegraph(UK) ^ | October 10th 2009

[Steelfish]

Revealed: Courts Let Dangerous Foreign Criminals Stay In Britain Dangerous foreign criminals are beating the Home Office to remain in the UK at the end of their prison sentences, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

David Barrett 10 Oct 2009

An investigation has uncovered scores of cases where offenders from overseas, including killers and sex attackers, have been able to stay in Britain despite strenuous attempts by the Government to deport them.

The findings demonstrate how criminals are using the 1998 Human Rights Act to avoid being sent back to their homelands – despite a pledge by Gordon Brown to remove any foreigner who breaks the law.

In cases thought to have cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds, immigration judges have overturned attempts by the Home Office to remove at least 50 foreign criminals from the country in the past 12 months, after lawyers argued that deporting them would breach their human rights.

In July 2007, Mr Brown told foreign nationals to "play by the rules or face the consequences", warning: "If you commit a crime you will be deported from our country."

Yet in several cases, criminals were allowed to remain in the UK despite courts acknowledging that they pose a danger to the public. Foreign offenders who have won the right to stay in Britain include:

:: Mark Cadle from Belize, jailed for having sex with a 14-year-old girl, who judges said would have his human rights infringed if deported because his family live in Britain.

:: Rohail Spall, a Pakistani businessman man jailed for attempting to spike a woman's drink so he could rape her, but allowed to stay because deporting him would breach his right to family life.

:: A Pakistani man in his forties who indecently assaulted a friend's six-year-old daughter at a cinema.