Jail for benefits swindler officials failed to deport
A JUDGE yesterday blasted Home Office officials for failing to deport an illegal immigrant who went on to swindle £32,000 in benefits.
Kerim Koroglu, 49, should have been sent back to Turkey after he was denied asylum in 2002. Instead he was allowed to live with his aunt in Coventry after exhausting all avenues of appeal.
Kurdish Koroglu, who smuggled himself into Britain in a lorry, disappeared off the Home Office radar after obtaining a fake “leave to remain” document.
The painter and decorator, who now faces deportation, later used this to claim housing and council tax benefits for six years in Hackney, east London.
The bogus letter, which was unsigned, stated that he had been granted asylum from criminals.
When Koroglu was convicted of fraud by an Old Bailey jury last November, Mr Recorder Oliver Sells QC ordered the Home Office to send an official to court.
He demanded the department explain why it had apparently assisted Koroglu to cheat taxpayers and enable him to bring his wife and two children over from Turkey. Before sentencing Koroglu to 30 months in jail yesterday, the judge grilled immigration officer Heather Laing on how he was able to dupe the authorities.
He said: “This defendant had, to use your words, exhausted his appeals by the end of 2002. As you say in your statement he should have left voluntarily at that stage, but where people do not do so he should have been deported.”
The court heard Koroglu, of Shoreditch, east London, and his wife had a third child in Britain.
Last night John O’Connell, chief executive of the Tax-Payers’ Alliance, said: “Lessons need to be learnt after this 15-year mess, especially how a fake letter was able to fool officials.”
Last night a Home Office spokesman said: “This case dates back to 2002, when the Home Office was more reliant on physical files. Since then our system has been modernised and improved as a result of digital immigration records.”