Marxists led ‘hijack’ of f light deporting violent criminals
A CAMPAIGN to stop the depor- tation of foreign-born criminals to Jamaica is being led by violent Marxists who were previously accused of ‘hijacking’ the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Fourteen criminals, including violent offenders, sex attackers and drug dealers, who were due to be deported from Britain last week, were instead granted a last-minute reprieve and hauled off a flight to Kingston.
The move followed a backlash to last year’s Windrush scandal, when the Government’s policy of removing Caribbean migrants who had lived and worked in Britain for decades was exposed.
But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that efforts to prevent the deportations is being led by the Movement For Justice By Any Means Necessary (MFJ), a pressure group which calls for the abolition of immigration controls, the closure of detention centres and an amnesty for all asylum seekers.
The group last night confirmed it was supporting the reprieved deportees, who include a drug dealer who flooded the streets of Bath with crack cocaine and a former soldier jailed for stabbing his girlfriend’s father.
MFJ spokesman Karen Doyle said: ‘We are helping people to access l egal representation, medical advice, their MPs, support organisations and to continue to tell their stories [and] get the truth out about who are the people being deported on these charter flights.’
Two years ago, MFJ sparked outrage by organising a ‘Day of Rage’ protest to ‘bring down the Government’ just days after the Grenfell Tower fire in West London, which killed 72. Victims accused the group of hijacking their grief.
The MFJ, whose name is inspired by a speech made by human rights activist Malcolm X, was founded in the 1990s by Tony Gard, a former primary school teacher. In 1996, he poured paint over then Tory Party chairman Lord Mawhinney and was convicted of assault.
Ms Doyle, 43, from South London, was convicted of assault over the same incident, during which Lord Mawhinney’s wife Betty was reported to have been ‘roughed up’.
Another leading MFJ member is Antonia Bright, a research assistant at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and a leading organiser of the ‘Day of Rage’ protest.
On its website, the MFJ claims to have ‘ infiltrated’ detention centres and ‘built a movement to shut down the entire detention system’. Last week, its members alerted media outlets to the chartered deportation flight scheduled to leave on Tuesday night before staging a demonstration outside the Jamaican High Commission in London the following day. Ms Bright was photographed at the protest.
In a round of media interviews, MFJ campaigners heaped pressure on the Home Office by portraying those facing deportation as victims of the system. Ms Doyle t old one website: ‘These people are being subject to a brutal double punishment, many for crimes that the British public would not consider serious – drunken fights and driving offences.’
She did not, however, highlight serious criminals who were scheduled for removal.
They include Lascelles White, 61, a crack cocaine kingpin in Bath and Somerset who was jailed in 2011.
Another man saved from last week’s flight is disgraced former soldier Twane Morgan, 34, who was jailed for six years in 2012 for plunging a knife into the chest of his girlfriend’s father.
Sympathetic reporting detailed how he had served two tours of Afghanistan before being discharged in 2007 because he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
However, The Mail on Sunday has established Morgan served in an area of Afghanistan where there was no fighting and was discharged after misdemeanours, including an arrest for the alleged possession of cannabis.
Serious criminals scheduled for removal