They never got round to sending me home
Illegal migrant in £440,000 jewel heist should have been deported six years earlier, but says:
AN ARMED robber who should have been deported six years ago was free to carry out a £440,000 jewellery shop raid because the authorities ‘never got round to it’.
Victor Okumu, 38, was an illegal immigrant from Kenya when he was given a 13-year sentence for a violent gunpoint robbery on a woman in her home.
A deportation order was issued, but when he was released the Home Office gave him accommodation – and failed to throw him out, a court heard. Five years later Okumu pulled off a raid on Bradley’s in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, in March.
He walked in wearing a crash helmet and visor and stole £441,640 in jewellery – only half of which has been recovered.
Okumu may have been carrying a knife as a female shop worker suffered a severely cut hand that required surgery, York Crown Court was told. He was arrested five days later and jailed for ten years and six months after admitting the robbery.
Okumu must serve two-thirds before any chance of parole. The court heard when asked why he had not been deported Okumu said: ‘They never got round to it.’
Stephen Wood, defending, said: ‘Given his previous conviction it is quite an astonishing state of affairs.’
A deportation order was issued in 2013 when he was still behind bars and he was released halfway through his sentence in March 2014.
Judge Sean Morris, the Recorder of York, said that the deportation ‘ did not happen’ and Okumu had been free to perform a ‘terrifying’ robbery.
The judge said Okumu had shown no remorse. He added: ‘You have an overwhelming sense of entitlement and if you don’t get what you want, you will take it from others, and use the threat of force, you are very dangerous.’
David Gordon, prosecuting, said Okumu had planned the robbery for eight months and ‘cased the joint’ in advance.
The robber cycled more than 20 miles from his home in Middlesbrough to Northallerton.
When Okumu he was arrested police found £212,000 of jewellery, ‘mostly rings’, in his coat.
The jewellery still missing is valued at £229,640. A man aged 49 and a woman, 29, arrested in connection have been released under investigation.
A Home Office spokesman said deportation was ‘ not always a straightforward process’, adding: ‘We are determined to deport all those who abuse our hospitality.’