Now judge frees drug dealer who was saved from being deported

A JAMAICAN drug dealer whose deportation was halted by a last-minute appeal was freed from custody by a judge last night.

Identified only as RS, the criminal was due to be on board a home Office charter flight on December 2.

But he and 22 other Jamaican criminals who were also due to be kicked out of the UK submitted legal challenges which delayed their removal, to the fury of home Secretary Priti Patel.

Now lawyers for RS – who was jailed for seven and a half years for dealing Class A drugs – have successfully argued that he should be freed from immigration detention while the home Office prepares another flight.

The high Court ruled that keeping him locked up was ‘unlawful’ and ordered Miss Patel to release him on bail.

A Government source said: ‘This highlights the difficulties we are facing when it comes to deporting foreign criminals.’

The court’s decision will reignite a debate which saw Miss Patel criticise ‘ do-gooding’ celebrities and Labour MPs who supported the criminals.

Miss Patel said it was ‘deeply offensive’ for stars including supermodel Naomi Campbell and Line Of Duty actress Thandie Newton to compare the criminals with victims of the Windrush scandal, who were innocent of any wrongdoing.

RS was removed from the flight after submitting a legal claim a day earlier, on December 1. The high Court heard that RS – who first came to the UK in 2002 – said he had been kidnapped and ‘shot in the head by a gang’ in Jamaica in 2001. he also claimed he had been raped in prison in 2016.

his lawyers argued he was suffering from ‘severe’ depression and PTSD which was being made worse in detention.

The court heard he had applied for asylum protection as he ‘feared ill-treatment in Jamaica’ and that deportation would ‘increase his risk of suicide’. Judge Timothy Corner QC was told by home Office lawyers that the next flight to Jamaica could take place in March. however, the judge said there was no ‘actual evidence’ to back this up.

Ruling that RS’s ‘mental health is very seriously impaired and detention is making it worse’, he concluded that ‘the lack of a clear timescale for his deportation means that he should be released’, adding: ‘I think there is a strong... case that his continued detention is unlawful.’