Nearly 4,000 Criminals have Evaded Deportation and Settled in Britain

The Home Office has abandoned 3,774 cases in the past three years due to human rights, records show. Baroness Williams said 66 criminals were allowed to stay as it ‘would impinge on family life ‘. Campaigners claim figures are evidence of the need for much stronger government action.

New recently revealed documents show that in 3,170 cases, no reason was specified, although Home Office sources said the exemptions could be due to criminals claiming that deportation would breach their human rights under European Union law. There were also 836 similar cases in 2017, 750 in 2018 and 1,584 last year.

Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: ‘There are far too many barriers to deportation which prevent or delay the removal of foreign criminals. ‘Such people, who have abused our hospitality and engaged in serious crimes, should be removed as quickly as possible. The safety of the UK public has to come first and if the law needs to change to make it possible, that is what must be done.’

Some will also be protected under the Geneva Convention on refugees and others will be EU nationals who can be removed only if they pose a ‘genuine and present threat’ to society, he said.

Denmark, however, deals with the issue in a different way.

Denmark is set to send deported criminals and convicted asylum seekers on a deserted island off its coast. The policy forms part of a draft budget agreement between the government and right-wing populists the Danish People’s Party (DPP).

DPP tweeted a video and said: “Expelled, criminal aliens have nothing to do in Denmark. Anders Primdahl Vistisen, a Danish MEP from the People’s Party, said that the policy would only touch people who were convicted of an offence and had endured long prison sentences in Denmark so “they’ll only have to stay there until they can return to their country of origin”.

He deemed it a “good solution to a delicate problem”. But Dharmendra Kanani, Director of Strategy for the think-tank Friends of Europe, countered that view. “Seeing the cartoon and listening to some of the rhetoric coming out of the political party reminds you of the rhetoric a hundred years ago (at the start of WWI) and we should fear what is taking place.

“It’s like the genie is out of the bottle and it’s everyone’s game. Hungary and Poland do what they do with refugees and asylum seekers. Now Denmark is saying: ‘It’s okay to ferry people off to an island’.” For Kanani, it doesn’t matter if these are criminals that are being shipped to the island. That doesn’t mean they don’t have any human rights,” he added.