Express
May 7, 2014
Almost 4,000 convicted migrants who should have been put on a plane home are still walking the streets.
Most were able to stop their removal by claiming a “right to a family life” under the Human Rights Act.
Their numbers soared by a fifth in the past year, despite promises by ministers.
Tory Philip Davies said: “These figures are shocking. They highlight what a fiasco human rights laws are.
“It seems they protect the rights of rapists and murderers, rather than hard-working British people.”
Fellow Tory backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg added: “Foreign criminals who commit major crimes should be deported unless there are exceptional circumstances.”
British law says foreigners jailed for 12 months or more can be deported when their sentences are up.
But many launch human rights challenges.
Home Office figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that 3,937 foreign criminals are at large in Britain after successfully appealing against deportation. Most committed relatively minor crimes.But a handful are terror suspects or gangsters.
And 98 have convictions for crimes such as child sex abuse, murder and rape.Among these, eight are murderers and 48 are rapists, including eight who raped children.
Ten committed other paedophile crimes.
Among them is Jamaican Jason Francis, 26, jailed for more than four years over the gang-rape of a 14-year-old girl in a playground.
He beat deportation by hiding behind a clause in the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects his right to a family life because he has fathered children in the UK.
Alphonse Semo, 54, was jailed for eight years for a horrific rape and should have been returned to the Congo after completing his sentence in 2011.
But he was granted permission to marry his German girlfriend and stay.
Sani Adil Ali, 28, was convicted of raping a 12-year-old months after being given refugee status in Middlesbrough.
He was allowed to stay in the UK because his tribe is threatened in Sudan.