£330,000 and counting: the bill for keeping this brute in Britain

TWELVE years of criminal trials, prison costs and immigration cases involving Somalian rapist Yaqub Ahmed have saddled the taxpayer with an estimated bill of £330,000.

The 30-year-old has been involved in three separate criminal cases and at least five asylum tribunal hearings, all funded by Legal Aid.

He has also spent nine years in prison or immigration detention centres. The five years that he spent behind bars for rape and conspiracy to rape would have cost at least £150,000.

The cost of detaining him since an attempt to deport him failed last October is estimated to be more than £29,000, equivalent to £100 per day.

The bill for housing and monitoring him after his release on bail for a month earlier this year is not yet known.

He was detained again in April after attempting to escape to Ireland.

Meanwhile, new figures obtained by The Mail on Sunday show more than £37,000 has been paid in legal aid to solicitors and barristers who have represented Ahmed between August 2007, when he committed the rape, and this April. A total of £28,893 was paid for his legal team during the 2008 rape trial – £16,515 to his solicitors and £11,379 to his barrister.

His latest lawyers got £4,300 for making a further asylum application.

Additional costs will include this month’s bail application and costs of investigating his claims that he now has a mental illness and is a victim of modern slavery.