Bartamaha (Mogadishu):- A Foreign criminal who has cost the taxpayer at least £500,000 in an extraordinary deportation farce will pocket a huge payout for compensation, it emerged last night.
Since arriving in Britain claiming asylum, aged 15, the Somalian has been jailed for more than a dozen crimes – including violence, burglary and robbery.
He has spent around 100 months in custody – at a cost to the public of more than £300,000.
The man, who has been receiving legal aid throughout his criminal career, re-offended within days or weeks every time he was released.
He was first told he was being considered for deportation in 2001, but due to the immigration farce which the last Government presided over, officials failed to kick him out.
From 2004, when his last jail sentence was completed, to 2007, he was held in an immigration detention centre – at a cost of around £40,000 a year, to stop him fleeing.
Now judges have decided that – for two months of that period – he was being held ‘illegally’. Known only as MH, he will receive a compensation payout which, in other similar cases, has averaged £16,000.
He had wanted more and appealed the case through the court system, assisted by legal aid. He is still in Britain and, given anybody facing removal to Somalia can claim their human rights will be breached, there is no guarantee he will ever be removed.
His various court cases are believed to have cost £200,000.
Last night, it sparked demands for reform of the legal aid system.
Judges have decided the foreign criminal, known only as MH, was held ‘illegally’ for two months
Details of the shambles emerged in papers published by the Court of Appeal yesterday.
They reveal MH arrived in the UK aged 15 claiming asylum, and was given temporary permission to stay. This expired in 1997 and was not renewed, making him an illegal immigrant. His offending career began in April 1996 with a caution for shoplifting, and quickly escalated to robbery.
After a string of convictions the Home Office served him with a deportation order in April 2004.
MH appealed but a judge said in 2005 he was ‘unlikely to desist from his pattern of offending’.
At this time, the Home Office was in the grip of the foreign prisoner crisis – which culminated in the mistaken release of 1,000 inmates without even being considered for deportation. As a result, MH was never kicked out, and remained in detention until 2007 – when he was finally released.
He then went to court claiming his rights had been violated and a judge ruled two of his months in custody had been unlawful and granted him the right to a damages payout for ‘false imprisonment’.
However MH’s lawyers went to the Appeal Court in a bid to boost the award, claiming he should have been released much earlier.
The appeal was dismissed but the decision still means MH will get compensation for two months of ‘unlawful imprisonment’.
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Source:-Dailymail.
