Express
January 9, 2014
![Keno Forbes Keno Forbes](/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Keno-Forbes_thumb.jpg)
A Jamaican crack dealer has escaped deportation because judges ruled that kicking him out of the country would breach his human rights.
Keno Forbes, 35, commuted into London daily to sell Class A drugs on a housing estate.
He was jailed for three years in 2011 but the government has now been told they cannot boot him out of Britain because it would damage his relationship with his wife and children.
Forbes, 35, travelled from his home in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, into London to peddle drugs on a housing estate in Islington, north London.
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The Home Office tried to have Forbes deported as his sentence was longer than 12 months, but his lawyers successfully argued he had a right to a “private and family life” under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The Government appealed the decision, but Mr Justice McCloskey, the president of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber Upper Tribunal, upheld the earlier ruling.
Mr Justice McCloskey said the lower court had said it was a “borderline case” but the balance “swung narrowly in favour” of Forbes and his family.
A Home Office spokesman said: “We are disappointed by the tribunal’s decision and are now considering our options in this case. We firmly believe foreign nationals who break the law should be deported.”
Ukip leader Nigel Farage said the case showed the ECHR is a “farce”.
He said: “Forbes should have thought about the relationship with his wife and child before he started selling class A drugs in the UK, knowing it is illegal.