Ministers to appeal court ruling preventing Jamaica deportations

THE GOVERNMENT said it will urgently appeal against a court ruling which prevented 25 offenders being deported to Jamaica yesterday after a last-minute legal battle with human rights campaigners.

Officials say those due to be deported are all foreign criminals who committed serious offences, including manslaughter, sexual attacks and drugs offences.

But campaigners, supported by 150 MPs, say they came to the country as children, are “British in every meaningful way” and some were sentenced for onetime drug offences when they were young.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said they “bitterly regretted” the Court of Appeal’s decision and Government sources said the row over the deportation flight showed why an examination of the judicial review process was needed.

A dozen separate applications for judicial review were filed in recent days in relation to the deportation flight, sources said.

The move follows news of a leaked report commissioned by ministers in the wake of the Windrush scandal which warned the Government that the deportation policy should be reconsidered in all but the “most severe cases”, particularly for those who came to the UK as children.

According to the Prime Minister’s official spokesman offences committed by the 25, include one manslaughter, one firearms offence, seven violent offences, two in the category of rape or sexual offences and 14 drugs offences.

He said: “The legal process for removing these offenders, which has included repeated appeals and judicial reviews, has already cost the British public tens of thousands of pounds.

“The taxpayer will now be left with an even bigger bill and the prospect of convicts who are considered to pose a threat to the UK being granted bail while this matter is resolved.

“We make no apology whatsoever for seeking to remove serious foreign national offenders and will be urgently appealing.”

Meanwhile, the 17 who were successfully deported had amassed sentences totalling 75 years for offences including rape, possession of firearms, violent offences including actual bodily and grievous bodily harm and the supply of Class A drugs, Downing Street said.

Under the UK Borders Act 2007, the Home Office must make a deportation order where a foreign national has been convicted of an offence and received a custodial sentence of 12 months or more. This is subject to several exceptions, including where to do so would breach someone’s human rights or the UK’s obligations under the Refugee Convention.

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants said the flight had “forced” families apart, adding that the deportees were “British in every meaningful way and if the law allows those people to be exiled, it needs to change.”

Amanda Pinto QC, chair of the

Bar Council, said judicial review was “a hugely important tool in a democratic society by which decisions of public authorities, including government, are subject to legal scrutiny”.

She said anything that tried to limit the ability of ordinary citizens to challenge decisions of those with power is a “red flag”.

The order was granted without a court hearing after an urgent application on paper by Detention Action.

A senior Tory source said the situation “makes the case perfectly to the public about why such a review is needed and why certain parts of Westminster still haven’t learned the lesson from the 2019 election”.

If the law allows those people to be exiled, it needs to change.

Statement from The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.