Daily Mail
March 12, 2014
A judge accused of going soft on foreign criminals has stepped down after admitting handing cash to an illegal immigrant who had lived in his home.
Richard McKee, 65, was a senior judge at the country’s highest immigration and asylum court when he gave money to the woman, who is 26 years his junior, while she was living here illegally.
The Nigerian woman, Fatima Umar, 39, was found to have overstayed her visa after she was arrested at Mr McKee’s house after a disagreement.
She now faces being deported.
Mr McKee, who has previously been accused of ruling far more often than other judges in favour of those seeking to avoid deportation, has been allowed to retire on a pension of around £50,000 a year without disciplinary action.
Police had been called to Mr McKee’s £460,000 flat in Kilburn, North West London, in the afternoon of January 28 after a report of a break-in.
Umar was arrested and charged with causing around £5,000 of criminal damage at the property and assaulting two police officers.
She is now serving two eight-week prison sentences.
When the judiciary was informed that Mr McKee had been providing financial support to an illegal immigrant he was allowed to retire without any penalty.
It is thought that Mr McKee had allowed the ‘pretty’ younger woman to live at his property on and off for the last few years. He has refused to comment on the nature of their relationship.
In 2011, Umar was sentenced to 14 weeks in jail after she assaulted the judge.
Last year, Mr McKee was given a reprimand for falling ‘short of the standards expected’ of judges after he failed to inform the judiciary that police were investigating the use of his ‘premises’ for unlawful activities.
One of Mr McKee’s neighbours last night said that Umar was attractive, but seemed like she had problems.
The woman said: ‘She was a really nice lady, very friendly and polite and she would always ask how my children were. She was very skinny and pretty.
‘But she looked like she was off it most of the time. Whether it was drugs or alcohol, I don’t know, but she always looked pretty much out of it.’
On the day she was arrested, neighbours said she was taken from the property kicking and screaming.
Mr McKee, a Cambridge graduate, worked for the Immigration Advisory Service as a barrister in the 1990s, bringing appeals for immigrants and asylum seekers, before he started adjudicating on cases in 2000.
An analysis of his judgments in 2012 found that in the 13 cases he heard in the previous year, he ruled in favour of foreign criminals wanting to avoid deportation on 11 occasions.