Labour’s vow to deport thousands of foreign criminals by the end of the year risks being undermined by a series of shocking failures to remove offenders by judges.
A Mail investigation can reveal how an Albanian jailed for drugs offences eight years ago was allowed to stay in Britain by judges – only to be locked up again last week for plotting to run a £400,000 cannabis farm.
Resul Rahova avoided deportation in 2020 by arguing he would be at risk from a ‘blood feud’ back home.
But last week he was jailed for 14 months over the cannabis farm plan in Norwich.
And a Polish drug driver who killed a father in 2020 when he fell asleep at the wheel was also allowed to remain because immigration judges earlier this year said he was not a ‘genuine threat’ to society.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (pictured) vowed to tackle Britain’s immigration crisis
A Mail investigation can reveal how an Albanian jailed for drugs offences eight years ago was locked up again last week for plotting to run a £400,000 cannabis farm (Stock Image)
Jaroslaw Bakula had killed 62-year-old Steven West in Cornwall in a collision in July 2020 and was jailed at Truro Crown Court in January 2023 for seven years.
Meanwhile South African Mawande Sicwebu – jailed for 32 months in February 2017 at Ipswich Crown Court for abducting and assaulting an 11-year-old girl – was given permission in June to stay as his family would be ‘devastated’ if he was kicked out.
Figures last week revealed the number of foreign criminals released from jail has reached a record high of more than 17,000.
At the end of June there were 17,428 foreign national offenders who had been released from prison but not deported.
It was the first time the Home Office had updated the figure since 2022, when it stood at just under 12,000.
It means that seven foreign criminals a day, on average, were freed to live in the community over the past two years.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper last week vowed to tackle Britain’s immigration crisis. But her campaign risks being derailed by immigration tribunals blocking deportations of serious foreign offenders on human rights grounds.
Dame Priti Patel (pictured) said the public were ‘fed up’ with foreign criminals ‘being let off the hook’
Last night former home secretary and Tory leadership contender Dame Priti Patel said the public were ‘fed up’ with foreign criminals ‘being let off the hook’.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We are committed to deporting foreign national offenders at the earliest opportunity and we remain focused on managing cases through the legal process so we can remove any barriers to deportation.’
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