Daily Mail
June 4, 2014
A foreign nurse who force-fed her baby to death cannot be deported because it would breach her right to a family life.
The Ghanaian woman won her fight to stay in Britain under controversial human rights laws.
And even though the 33-year-old was named in the widely-reported court case that saw her jailed for causing the baby’s death, she has now been granted anonymity.
Having served her three-year sentence, she has been free since April last year to look after her three surviving children.
Last night one MP said the situation was ‘perverse’ and called the immigration tribunal’s ruling ‘warped’. Home Secretary Theresa May has made repeated attempts to remove the woman, who can be referred to only as GHA.
The case will again raise questions about the use of the European Convention on Human Rights to protect criminals. The Home Office said the ruling was ‘disappointing’.
The nurse, who came to the UK on a student visa in 2000, used a small milk jug to tip baby rice African corn porridge and chicken soup into her child’s mouth.
GHA’s legal victory – using Article 8 of the European Convention – means that she has been allowed to remain in the UK unconditionally with her family and been granted lifetime anonymity.
Dominic Raab, a Conservative MP who has called for the reining-in of human rights laws, said: ‘Many people will look at this case, a mother jailed for force-feeding her baby and feel it reflects the warped nature of our human rights laws today.
‘The argument is that she is being separated from her kids but not only was she separated from them in prison but there were also care proceedings brought against her.
‘The children have also spent periods of time in Ghana so the arguments for not deporting her fall away. It shows how the judges have expanded and shifted the goalposts from human rights in a way that is pretty arbitrary and perverse.
‘It does not reflect anything written into the ECHR and certainly not anything Parliament has agreed to.
‘Article 8 is being used by convicted, jailed criminals to stay in this country. This isn’t the only case. I actually think the article can be a threat to family life, in particular vulnerable children and partners.’
He said that almost 90 per cent of successful deportation appeals are using Article 8 – up to 400 cases a year: ‘Article 8 is the single biggest problem for deporting a serious foreign criminal and this is something that has only really developed in the last seven years. What will it be like in another seven? It could be almost impossible to deport someone.’