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This country is a
lunatic asylum with the inmates running the place...
Allowed
to stay here - because he is a risk to
people in his own country if deported!
Over 100
foreign criminals and illegal immigrants have used the European 'right
to a family life' to avoid deportation from the UK in the past year.
Article Eight of the European Convention on Human Rights - guaranteeing
the 'right to a family life' - has helped a total of 102 people
frustrate the deportation process.
These include a number of violent criminals and illegal immigrants who
had no other right to remain in the country.
In one case, a foreign criminal who used Article Eight was a violent
thug and drug dealer who beat his girlfriend and failed to pay child
maintenance.
None claimed they would be in danger of torture or abuse if they were
sent back to their home countries.
Conservative MP Dominic Raab, who got hold of the figures, told the
Sunday Telegraph: 'Before the Human Rights Act, no criminal had ever
claimed a right to family life to frustrate a deportation order in this
country.
'It is high time we changed to law, to restore some common sense and
retain public confidence in out border controls.'
In 2010, 233 appeals against deportation were made. Of these, 149 were
successful on human rights grounds - 102 of them citing Article Eight
alone.
Just 35 were under Article Three, which protects people from being
killed or tortured if returned to an unsafe country. The rest used a
mix of Articles.
The figures from HM Courts Service show Article Eight is the number one
reason foreign criminals or illegal immigrants managed to defeat
deportation.
The Home Secretary, Theresa May, had ordered the North London-based
violent drug dealer - who can only be named as AP because judges kept
his identity a secret - sent back to Trinidad.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, he has a five-year-old daughter,
from whom he provided no care nor any maintenance payments, but he
still won his fight against deportation thanks to his 'right to a
family life'.
His is just the latest case of Article Eight being used to halt the
deportation process. Others include:
A Sri Lankan robber allowed to remain here because he has a girlfriend
in Britain.
An Iraqi killer who, judges ruled, should not be sent
back because he would pose a risk to people in his home country.
A Bolivian man who was able to stay partly because he owned a pet cat.
AP - the violent drug dealer who has just been given leave to stay -
was jailed for 18 months by Ipswich Crown Court in May 2008 for
possession of cocaine with intent to supply.
His criminal record also included battery of his partner in 2007.
Home Office officials told him they intended to deport him back to the
Caribbean after he had served his sentence.
But he appealed and after his release from jail at the beginning of
2009 he told a tribunal he was remorseful and getting his life back on
track.
Two days later he was caught in possession of cocaine and fined
£75.
But a tribunal ruled AP should not be deported in March 2009. The
judges said: 'We are satisfied that the effect of his proposed removal
on all members of his family unit in the UK would result in removal
being disproportionate, especially since he has a child who has a
strong bond with him and he with her and we have heard credible
evidence that he is a good and caring father.'
Despite an appeal by the Home Secretary, AP's right to stay was upheld
for Lord Justice Longmore, Lord Justice Carwath and Lord Justice Rimer
at the Court of Appeal last month.
The European Convention on Human Rights was made UK law by the passing
of the Human Rights Act by Tony Blair's Labour government in 1998.
Controversy has raged around it ever since as its provisions take
precedence over other British law. |
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