A senior judge pointed to apparent confusion in the Home Office when making his decision over the case of Alphonse Semo, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
On Monday he won a High Court battle to remain in the UK for his wedding just hours before he was due to board a plane back to Africa.
Mr Justice Collins said it was difficult to have any sympathy for Semo, who was jailed for eight years for raping a woman before throwing his victim on a rubbish tip.
The judge said the Home Office had at first agreed to let the 53-year-old, from Deptford, south-east London, get married to his long-term partner, a German national.
Then the wedding was effectively cancelled by a subsequent decision "by the same Home Office - no doubt by a different department".
The judge said he was "very reluctant" to intervene - "but it seems to me the Home Office really cannot be allowed to play hot and cold".
The judge said: "With considerable reluctance, I have to say he must be allowed to marry. That means there will be a prohibition against removing him."
Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: "The Home Secretary needs to explain urgently what happened in this case, with the Home Office seeming to contradict itself. Many people will be rightly angry that a convicted rapist can find ways to stay in this country when he has no right to be here."
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "The Home Secretary should have had Semo on the first flight out after his release. Until the left hand knows what the right is doing at the Home Office, we will not have a migration system fit for purpose. It's time to end the mismanagement."
David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer
1 comments:
NIce
Post a Comment