A failed asylum seeker jailed for child rape recieves £50,000

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Conservative Home Affairs spokesman Damian Green said:

Justice Calvert-Smith: Said the man tried to stay 'by hook or by crook'

A failed asylum seeker jailed for child rape is to receive around £50,000 in damages after a judge ruled he had been unlawfully kept behind bars while the Home Office tried to deport him to Somalia.

He won the payout despite being offered the opportunity to go voluntarily - but he preferred to stay in a British prison with free bed and board.

The pay-out is all the more astonishing because the authorities effectively have little choice but to keep him in prison.

He cannot be let out on to the streets in Britain because he is considered a danger to the public - especially women.

But equally, it is very difficult to deported him back to Somalia, despite failing in his asylum application.

Until July no airline was willing to fly compulsory deportees there, and only one will do so now - but it is dealing with a backlog. The man himself, meanwhile, refuses to go voluntarily because he says it is too dangerous for him back home.

He has, in effect, elected to stay in Britain - yet is claiming compensation for doing so. All the while, on top of his £50,000 damages and £100,000 legal fees paid by the taxpayer, he is costing more than £37,000 a year to keep in prison.

His stay in prison beyond his sentence has already cost well over £100,000 to the taxpayer. And he is also entitled to remain anonymous in the media.

This is because the Court of Appeal follows the convention in other European courts that publicly naming asylum seekers may put them at danger from those they may be fleeing from.

The 30-year-old entered Britain illegally on a false Kenyan passport in 1995, and within three years had raped a 13-year old girl at knifepoint. Probation officers warned that if freed he might stalk his victim and attack her again, and that he poses a risk to all women, and the public in general.

He has been held in prison since his sentence ended in 2003, while officials bid to deport him to Somalia. He used Legal Aid, pushing his law fees for the taxpayer of up to £100,000, to launch a High Court appeal to be freed, along with a claim for compensation for being unlawfully imprisoned - in spite of the fact that he has been free to return to his homeland for more than three years.

Yesterday, astonishingly, his claim was partially accepted by High Court judge Mr Justice CalvertSmith who ruled that although the failed asylum seeker had sought to remain in Britain 'by hook or by crook', he had been unlawfully detained for 20 months.

The rapist - who has been granted the cloak of anyonymity, and can be known only as 'A' - will accordingly be paid compensation likely to run to £50,000, enough to buy many houses in his homeland.

The failed asylum seeker plans to appeal any imminent bid to forcibly deport him, but if he is successfully sent back his legal winnings will be sent to him there.

Somali A, who was born in his country's capital, Mogadishu, first claimed asylum in May 1995 after entering the country with his bogus Kenyan passport. That claim was rejected, although he was granted 'exceptional leave to remain' until February 2000.

But in February 1998 he raped his schoolgirl victim - threatening her with a knife as he forced her to carry out a sex act. In July of that year he was jailed for eight years.

But because he was such a clear danger to his victim and women and the public in general, when A's prison sentence came to an end in September 2003 he was kept in prison pending deportation.

He was assessed as being likely to abscond if freed on bail.

He launched numerous legal battles against deportation, and two more claims for asylum, all on Legal Aid, but by September last year all had failed.

When he again faced forcible deportation last month, he launched his latest bid.

At the High Court in London, Nigel Giffin QC, appearing for the Home Secretary, said A could long ago have brought his detention to an end if he had returned home voluntarily.

He accepted that compulsory removals to Somalia had been impossible for a while, because no airline was willing to fly deportees there - but the Home Secretary never gave up his attempts, and persisted in hoping A would return voluntarily, which at one point he seemed to indicate enthusiasm for.

Mr Griffin told the court 48 Somali deportees had returned to the country voluntarily over the last three years, as "there has been no barrier to voluntary travel".

Mr Griffin said: "The claimant is merely taking illegitimate advantage of the difficulties there have been in effecting compulsory removals."

And in July of this year, when a degree of stablity returned to Somalia, flights into the country increased, and A's forcible deportation became imminently practical.

Warnings of his danger to the public, meanwhile, were clear.

Documents handed to the court said: "The probation officer at Maidstone Prison concluded that the clamaint continued to pose a high risk of sexual offending on release. "She noted concerns about his strong stereotypical view of females as well as a poor disciplinary record in prison."

Another probation officer, meanwhile, 'noted that the claimant exhibited disturbed behaviour, and displayed no remorse whatsoever.

"The probation officer considered both that the claimant continued to pose a risk to women, and that he posed a risk of reoffending in other ways.

"He was also concerned the claimant might attempt to locate and take revenge upon his original victim."

Somali A's barrister, Richard Drabble QC, said he would seek a judicial review of any imminent bid by Home Secretary John Reid to send his client home, claiming he feared death there.

Mr Drabble, who had called for his clients "immediate release" said: "Somalia has been in a state of dangerous chaos." Mr Justice Calvert Smith ruled that from December 2004 until July this year A was held in prison unlawfully because there was no possibility of sending him back to Somalia, and was entitled to compensation.

Home Office Minister Liam Byrne said after the hearing: "We are disappointed with the court's decision and are considering whether to appeal.

"We are, however, pleased that the Court has recognised this individual is currently legally detained. This decision does not affect our commitment to seek to deport foreign national prisoners who have committed a serious crime as early as possible in their sentence."

Conservative Home Affairs spokesman Damian Green said: "Yet again the public will be left mystified by another bizarre and unfair decision. They will wonder if the Government will ever get to grips with this shambles."

Mr Justice Calvert Smith said A should have been considered for release in the community with an electronic tag - despite hearing from the Home Office's barrister that tags "can be removed" and "would not be a satisfactory means of guarding against the risk of absconding".

Conservative MP Philip Davies said last night: "You couldn't make this up. Every decent hardworking family that pays their taxes in this country will be disgusted and horrified by this compensation payout.

"Welcome to Britain in 2006 under New Labour.

"People are getting more and more sick of things like this."

A spokesman for the Taxpayers Alliance, James Frayne said: "This must be one of the most repellent compensation awards ever made.

"Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay a penny to this man, and politicians should be ashamed of themselves for creating a criminal justice system which allows this sort of thing to happen.

"If any human rights legislation is responsible for this ruling it should be repealed immediately."

And spokesman for the pressure group Victims of Crime Trust Norman Brennan said: "Just when you think the compensation culture in this country couldn't become any madder, we seem to be able to top it.

"The average compensation payout for a victim of rape is £13,000 - so this man has got four times what his poor victim is likely to have got for what he did to her.

"This is a clear case of lunacy within the courts and it brings the whole criminal justice system into question. Someone somewhere has got to get a grip of this out of control compensation culture."

n.sears@dailymail.co.uk

 

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