An Albanian illegal immigrant jailed for his role in a £1.5million drugs plot has won the right to fight deportation after a judge suggested his crime was not harmful enough.
The immigration tribunal found Ndue Paluca’s crime may not meet the threshold for ‘serious harm’ because the cannabis was seized before it was sold on the streets.
The judge also found that his deportation would impact his two young children and could violate his rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to family life.
Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, called it ‘absurd’ that ‘being caught red-handed now counts in a criminal’s favour’.
The criminal entered the UK without permission in 2012 before joining a gang that aimed to make £1.5million a year selling cannabis grown at a series of sites across the Home Counties.
Police raided the farms – including two in Ashford, Kent and one in the picturesque village of Watton-at-Stone in Hertfordshire – and seized more than 485 plants, half a kilo of harvested cannabis and more than £61,000 in cash.
Paluca, 30, was jailed for 10 months in 2021 while his 10 fellow Albanian gang members received sentences totalling more than 36 years for what a judge called ‘serious organised crime‘.
In October 2023, he challenged his deportation order under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to family life, on the basis that returning him to Albania would be ‘unduly harsh’ on his Lithuanian partner and two young children.
But in March 2025, a first tier immigration tribunal rejected his challenge and dismissed a subsequent appeal – concluding that the seriousness of his offending outweighed his rights under the ECHR.
Paluca’s lawyers took his case to the upper tribunal, where they argued that the first tier judge had made several errors – including overlooking the fact that police seized all the cannabis grown by Paluca’s gang before it could be sold on and potentially cause harm.
Ndue Paluca has won the right to appeal the Home Office’s decision to kick him out of the country after an immigration judge ruled his offence might not be serious enough
Cannabis plants at one of the Home Counties farms run by Paluca’s gang
The senior judge at Field House in central London has now accepted he has the right to pursue a formal appeal against his deportation.
At the heart of Paluca’s claim is a dispute over whether his offence was serious enough for him to be deported given he was jailed for less than a year – the standard minimum for automatic deportation.
The lower tribunal found that Paluca’s offending met the necessary threshold due to the ‘serious harm caused by drugs and their wider impact on society’.
But Upper Tribunal Judge Sarah Grey quashed that finding and ordered his case to be heard by a new judge.
She ruled that the first judge had erred in finding that Paluca caused ‘serious harm’ because police seized the cannabis before it ‘circulated within society’.
She added that Paluca’s role had been working as a ‘gardener’ at just one of the properties raided by police.
Judge Grey found that her junior colleague had also failed to properly consider the harm that his deportation would cause to his two young children, which could be found to violate his rights under Article 8 of the ECHR.
She also criticised the judge for ‘failing to meaningfully engage’ with a report drafted by a social worker and for failing to take into account evidence that he was a primary carer for his children.
‘It follows from what I have said that the appellant’s appeal is allowed,’ the judge wrote.
‘The decision is set aside in its entirety with no findings preserved.’
Judge Grey sent Paluca’s appeal back to the first tier tribunal for reconsideration – allowing the criminal to remain in the UK.
Chris Philp told the Mail: ‘Lawfare has become so absurd that being caught red-handed now counts in a criminal’s favour.
‘The Conservatives would leave the ECHR, repeal the Human Rights Act and deport illegal immigrants and foreign criminals, so crime has consequences.’
The finding is the latest in a series of controversial rulings by immigration courts.
Earlier this month, the Mail revealed how a kidnapper had won the right to challenge his deportation after a judge found he could be mistreated in his native Kosovo for being Roma.
Avdi Alija, 39, arrived illegally in the UK aged 14 and has been convicted of 50 criminal offences ranging from burglary and theft to cocaine possession and driving while drunk or high on drugs.
A first tier tribunal in Newport, South Wales, heard he was part of a gang that kidnapped a man and forced him into a car at knifepoint in 2018.
The immigration judge noted that Alija was considered a danger to the community, which meant he was barred from claiming asylum under the Geneva Convention.
However, he was allowed to challenge his deportation order under the ECHR, citing Articles 2, 3 and 4, which protect the right to life and prohibit degrading treatment, slavery and forced labour.
Granting his appeal, Judge Boyes concluded that his lack of documents proving his Kosovan nationality – together with his Roma identity – would leave him at risk of ill-treatment.
He cited Vebi Kosumi, an expert witness who concluded that Alija would ‘face discrimination, potential exploitation and abuse’ if deported to Kosovo.