And here’s more proof our Border Force can’t cope...
Romanian kicked out for serious fraud got back into Britain 13 TIMES
A ROMANIAN criminal was able to travel into Britain 13 times despite being deported for a serious criminal offence, a court has heard.
Gabriel Dragut, 28, was kicked out of the country five years ago after serving time for a fraud carried out at cash machines.
But he was allowed to come and go at will in Britain – and was even convicted here for another offence – until he was arrested for stealing an 81-year-old woman’s purse in a supermarket car park.
The security failure raises serious questions about Border Force agents who failed to pick him up.
Dragut, who was living in Colchester, Essex, was jailed for ten months yesterday for his latest offence after admitting theft.
Peter Spary, defending, told the judge his client had been handed a one-way ticket back to Romania by the Home Office when he was deported in 2012 but was not asked to sign anything. ‘He didn’t know he wasn’t allowed to come back. He came back to the UK regularly and there were no problems at the borders,’ he said.
Dragut was seized by security guards at a Sainsbury’s in Ipswich on May 9 after he and an accomplice were spotted on CCTV operating a distraction theft on the elderly victim.
She was putting her shopping in her car when he asked her for directions to the nearest hospital while the other man took her purse from her handbag. The other suspect was never caught.
Michael Crimp, prosecuting, told Ipswich Crown Court that Dragut was jailed for two years in May 2012 at Teesside Crown Court in Middlesbrough for using card-skimming equipment having articles for use in fraud, again in connection with cardskimming devices. It was not clear last night what sentence he received on that occasion.
In a statement, his latest victim said her confidence had been ‘shattered’ and she was now nervous about going shopping.
Dragut, whose wife had been working at a hotel in Colchester, lost his job in a factory shortly before the theft.
Sentencing him, Judge Rupert Overbury said: ‘This was a particularly mean and unpleasant offence where you deliberately targeted an elderly woman.’
The offence was ‘aggravated’ by the fact he had returned to the UK to commit more crimes.
Last night the Home Office failed to explain how it was possible for someone with a criminal record to avoid being caught while entering the UK on so many occasions. A spokesman said: ‘Anyone subject to a deportation order is placed on a watchlist and banned from reentering the UK.’