A Pakistani paedophile labelled a “danger to the community” escaped deportation because he is an alcoholic, a shocking ruling has revealed.
The sex offender, who was jailed for sexually assaulting a girl under 13, was allowed to remain because of his “uncontrollable alcohol consumption”.
An asylum tribunal also heard the man, who was granted anonymity, is considered a “danger to the community” and has also been convicted in Britain of another sexual assault, beating his wife, and assaulting emergency workers.
But the tribunal ruled the predator could be jailed because alcohol is illegal in Pakistan.
This, the judge ruled, would violate his human rights.
Details of the ruling – made in June last year – emerged at an appeal made by the Home Office against the decision.
The Upper Tier Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber was told the Pakistani came to the UK in 2010 with leave as a spouse and lived with his wife. The couple had a son who is a British citizen.
But their marriage broke down after the unnamed man assaulted her and he was convicted of battery.
After their 2018 divorce, he was granted leave to remain due to his relationship with his son.
In July 2020, he was jailed for a year after he assaulted emergency service workers when ‘heavily intoxicated’, then sexually assaulted someone while on bail for the first offence.
In August 2020 he was issued with a deportation order but in December 2022, while still in the country he was jailed for a year again after he sexually assaulted a girl under 13.
He lodged an appeal against his deportation order and a psychiatrist warned about his alcohol dependency – said to be triggered by his divorce – and the impact it would have on him in Pakistan.
Owning or possessing alcohol is illegal for Muslims in Pakistan.
The Pakistani argued he would be ‘punished’ with imprisonment in his home country and ‘it is well-known that prison conditions are inhuman and degrading in Pakistan’.
At the June 2024 hearing at the First-tier Tribunal Judge Leanne Turner ruled that it would be unfair to deport him.
Judge Turner said was “sufficient evidence to show that the [Pakistani] would face inhuman or degrading treatment on return to Pakistan as a result of a highly likely criminal prosecution and imprisonment for his uncontrollable alcohol consumption”.
He would face ‘torture or inhumane or degrading treatment’ due to the prisons in Pakistan and returning him would be a breach the UK’s obligations under the European Convention of Human Rights’, Judge Turner said.
Since the decision, the Home Office has appealed it, claiming Judge Turner made mistakes.
The Home Office argued it is down to the Pakistani to “take responsibility for his behaviour”.
It was a “matter for the Pakistani to comply with the law and he should change his behaviour”, the Home Office argued.
While it “might be difficult it was not open to him to say that he would drink and end up in prison”, the government department also said.
Home Office officials are examining how judges are applying the rights to a family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Daily Express can confirm.
A number of cases will be selected and examined for loopholes, it is understood.
This will identify how some human rights lawyers and migrants abuse the law to avoid deportation.
Whilst the work is in its “early stages”, ministers have been warned “too many” foreign criminals have been allowed to stay for reasons which “defy common sense”.
At the Upper Tribunal, Judge Soraya Reeds found in favour of the Home Office and set aside the June 2024 decision.
Judge Reeds said that at last year’s hearing, Judge Turner inappropriately ‘speculated’ and ‘started from the assumption he would drink and would be imprisoned’.
Judge Reeds said the judge did not take it into account that the evidence does not show he would definitely go to prison.
Judge Reeds said: “Given that there are likely to be Muslims in Pakistan who drink and possess alcohol, the assertion that all will be arrested, prosecuted and indeed receive imprisonment is not evidenced.
“The country evidence only sets out in general terms that the possession of alcohol for Muslims is banned and that this can give rise to arrest and prosecution and punishment can be imprisonment and/or a fine.
“It does not set out nor is there any acceptance that all of those found to be in possession of alcohol or drinking alcohol are either prosecuted or if they are they receive a sentence of imprisonment.”
Judge Reeds added: “There was a gap in the reasoning, in other words inadequate reasoning, based on a speculative finding that the [Pakistani] would be imprisoned.
“The Judge in essence went straight from considering the [Pakistani] being in possession of alcohol to then being imprisoned.”
Judge Reeds also said it was not considered that the Pakistani might have proper support from his family to help his addiction in Pakistan, since his five sisters, two brothers and his mother all live in the country.
The case was remitted back to the First-tier Tribunal and a fresh hearing to determine whether he faces deportation will take place at a later date.