A Jamaican criminal was caught drug dealing three days after winning his asylum case to remain in Britain. Jevaughn Williams, 28, was committing crimes even as he was fighting a legal battle for permission to stay in the UK.
Official documents show an asylum judge had revoked his deportation order over it being in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, but a First Tier Tribunal ruled in August that Williams’ deportation to Jamaica would not be a breach of the legislation. He is now facing being sent back to the Caribbean country.
Tribunal documents show Williams arrived in the UK with his mother in August 2001 and they overstayed their leave to enter and remained without leave until granted indefinite leave to remain in December 2008.
His criminal convictions date back to December 2012 when he pleaded guilty at Snaresbrook Crown Court to possessing a sawn off shotgun. In February 2013 he returned to the same court charged with possessing a knife in public and committing an offence while subject to a rehabilitation order, for which he was sentenced to 18 months’ training and detention.
Williams was cautioned by police for possessing class A drugs in September 2015; sentenced to a community order for a burglary conviction in July 2020 and convicted of voyeurism at Wood Green Court in January 2023. He was sentenced to 16 months suspended for 19 months.
The court heard Williams “had photographed different women in states of undress when he was delivering drugs to his customers”.
The Home Office decided to deport him in 2014 and despite his appeal against deportation being refused, he remained in the UK until he was cautioned for possession of class A drugs and convicted of burglary.
It agreed to reconsider the decision to deport Williams after he appealed against the deportation order in 2017. Williams’s claim was refused and he then made a second appeal bid, which was dismissed in 2020.
He tried to appeal again, but permission was refused and an attempt was made to remove him in 2021. However, this proved unsuccessful after his solicitors took legal action.
In the same year he was sentenced for voyeurism, a First-Tier tribunal judge revoked Williams’ deportation order. The judge argued that he was “socially and culturally” integrated into Britain and deporting him would breach his rights under the ECHR.
The judge said they believed Williams genuinely regretted his “criminal misdoings” and wanted to become a “useful member of society”.
They warned it was unlikely for the matters which saved him on that occasion would be enough to “save him again”.
But further convictions for drugs offences followed, including for supplying cannabis, for which he was sentenced to six months. His last conviction was in September 2024 at East London Magistrates’ Court where he pleaded guilty to failing to comply with the requirements of a Sex Offenders Notice.
The Tribunal heard Williams had “no regard” for UK law, he had been using his family home as a base to supply drugs and the only person who would vouch for him was his mother.
It also heard Williams “accepted” he was making “bad decisions” and his own use of cannabis was a way of coping with past tribunal decisions. There had also been no further offences after he was released from prison in May last year.
Upper Tribunal Judge Mark Blundell concluded Williams had “no regard whatsoever for the law” after having reoffended numerous times even during his legal battle to stay in the UK.
In a bid to explain why he dealt drugs, Williams told the tribunal he was prevented from working and accessing public funds, which he said meant he had to find “a means to survive”.
But the tribunal found he lacked the motivation to change his lifestyle and this contributed to “an imminent risk” of his going on to “re-offend or cause serious harm”. It also said he was “surprisingly blasé about his sexual offending” when giving evidence.
The Upper Tier Tribunal overturned the lower court’s decision and ruled he should be deported. Judge Blundell said in the written ruling: “The public interest in the appellant’s deportation is significantly enhanced as a result of the likelihood of his re-offending.
“It is evidently in the interests of the United Kingdom that [Williams] is deported to Jamaica, where he will likely commit further criminal offences in order to counter the obstacles he will inevitably face, rather than committing further offences in the UK”.