Serial sex offender can stay in UK, judge rules

A serial sex offender from Sierra Leone has been allowed to stay in the UK after a judge ruled deporting him would breach his human rights.

	The case echoes that of Italian killer Learco Chindamo

The revelation will be an embarrassment for Gordon Brown who recently pledged to double the number of foreign criminals being deported to their native countries.

Mohammed Kendeh, 20, who has admitted indecently assaulting 11 women, was assessed by the Home Office as being at "high risk" of reoffending.

But their attempt to deport him was overruled by an immigration judge last year.

The Home Office appealed that decision but now Mr Justice Hodge, President of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, has delivered a lengthy judgement upholding Kendeh’s right to stay in Britain.

Mr Justice Hodge, who is the husband of Government minister Margaret Hodge, said article eight of the Human Rights Act, which enshrines the "right to a family life", meant the sex attacker could not be deported.

Kendeh, who now lives in Peckham, south London, left Sierra Leone at the age of six and has very little family remaining in the troubled West African nation.

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His case echoes that of Learco Chindamo, who was convicted of murdering headteacher Philip Lawrence in 1995.

In August this year the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled that Chindamo should not be deported to his home country of Italy. He had been brought to the UK by his mother when he was six, did not speak Italian and his family were in Britain.

Kendeh first went to prison at the age of 15 and over the past five years has also been arrested for robbery, burglary, arson and drugs offences.

Gabrielle Browne, one of the women he attacked, said she felt "devastated and let down" by the judgement. She believes Kendeh will attack again.

Mrs Browne, 42, an IT worker and mother of two who lives in south London, waved her right to anonymity to tell how she was attacked in a park while training for the London Marathon in 2003.

"How is it right that somebody who has offended so seriously against defenceless women is allowed to remain in this country?" she said. "It is a farce."

In July Gordon Brown set a target of deporting 4,000 foreign criminals by the end of the year to ease the prison overcrowding crisis. The previous target had been 2,000.

Mr Brown said he wanted a message to go out that "if you commit a crime you will be deported from our country."

Last year Mr Justice Hodge himself said too many foreign criminals were not being sent home and removing people was a "big, big problem."

The Home Office made no immediate comment on the case.