A foreign criminal overturned a bid to deport him by claiming it would harm his children – even though he is a convicted paedophile, the Mail can disclose.
The Indian man was jailed for 14 months on three counts of distributing child sex abuse images in 2021.
He was also handed a sexual harm prevention order and required to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.
When the Home Office tried to deport him the following year due to his serious crimes he launched a legal challenge on human rights grounds, and won, but a new case is now pending after further appeals.
Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick said the case was ‘madness’ and provided further evidence of why Britain must leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Lawyers for the Indian paedophile, who can only be referred to as ‘HS’ after being granted life-long anonymity, said deportation would damage his right to ‘private and family life’ under Article 8 of the convention.
First-tier immigration judge Jetsun Lebasci granted his appeal in August last year on the grounds it would be ‘unduly harsh’ for HS’s two children to be separated from him.
However, the Home Office appealed against that ruling.
Tory leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick said the case was ‘madness’ and provided further evidence of why Britain must leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
A foreign criminal overturned a bid to deport him by claiming it would harm his children – even though he is a convicted paedophile, the Mail can disclose. Pictured: The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)
Appeal judges in the upper immigration and asylum tribunal went on to raise serious concerns about the way the earlier case was handled.
Home Office lawyers highlighted a report from an independent social worker, Laurence Chester, which concluded deportation would be too harsh on HS’s children.
Upper tribunal judges raised ‘several concerns’ about Mr Chester’s report, noting that he had not seen documents from the family court which detailed measures other social workers and probation officers imposed in the wake of HS’s sex offences.
Family court judges prevented HS from having ‘direct unsupervised contact’ with his children.
HS has only weekly video calls with them, legal papers disclosed.
‘We find the independent social worker’s failure to consider the nature of the appellant’s offending… as a safeguarding issue that needed to be evaluated was an astonishing oversight,’ the upper court ruling said.
‘Only passing references are made to the nature of the appellant’s offending,’
Home Office lawyers highlighted a report from an independent social worker, Laurence Chester, which concluded deportation would be too harsh on HS’s children (file image)
Ms Lebasci’s ruling had failed to acknowledge the ‘obvious weaknesses’ in Mr Chester’s report, which suffered from ‘startling omissions’, it went on.
‘By primarily relaying on the evidence of the independent social worker, the judge failed to engage with the evident shortcomings of his report,’ wrote upper tribunal judges Melissa Canavan and Matthew Hoffman.
‘We also find that the judge failed to take into account the nature of the applicant’s offending, which involved child pornography, and how this factored into the issue of contact with his children.’
HS first came to the UK in 2002, went on to remain here illegally, then married here in 2010 and later won temporary permission to stay here as a spouse.
The upper tribunal judges referred the case back to the lower court to be heard again.
It means HS has managed to delay deportation, but a new hearing will take place.
Former immigration minister Mr Jenrick said: ‘We cannot even remove sick paedophiles from our streets because of spurious ECHR claims.
‘How can anyone defend this madness?
‘The situation is untenable.
‘We must put the safety of the British people first and leave the ECHR immediately.’