Soft touch courts let these three stay in UK

ARTICLE 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibits ‘torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’. Among the foreign criminals who have used it to stay in the UK are:

The violent drug dealer

Valentine Harverye, who burned a woman with melted plastic and scalded her with boiling water, used Article 3 to defeat an attempt to deport him.

His 34-year-old victim was scarred for life in the 2009 assault for which he was jailed for five and a half years.

An immigration judge ruled that drug dealer Harverye faced a ‘real risk of illtreatment’ if he was sent back to his home country, Zimbabwe. His appeal, in 2013, was allowed.

The alcoholic Libyan

A Libyan man convicted of 78 offences successfully argued he could not be sent home, partly due to his alcoholism.

Lawyers for the 53-year-old, who can only be identified by the initials ‘HU’, told his deportation appeal he would face physical punishment and imprisonment because alcohol is illegal in his country.

An immigration judge allowed his case in 2015, under Article 3 and under Article 8, the ‘right to family life’.

The thug with HIV

In April this year the Supreme Court ruled a criminal’s human rights would be breached if he was deported to Zimbabwe because he would not be able to access HIV drugs that he requires.

‘AM’ had accumulated convictions including for battery, assault, possession of a firearm and possession of heroin with intent to supply. The Home Office began trying to deport him in 2006.

The Supreme Court allowed his appeal under Article 3 and the case was referred back to the immigration courts.