A Pakistani sex offender convicted of sexually assaulting a woman has been allowed to stay in Britain after claiming to be gay, according to a report in The Telegraph. The 53-year-old man, only known as MR, had been living illegally in the UK for 11 years. He was arrested by the police in 2017 and convicted in the same year for sexually assaulting a woman by touching.
MR came to the UK in 2006 as a student but overstayed his welcome as his visa expired in December 2006. He applied fo leave to remain on human grounds in 2012 but the plea was rejected by the Home Office.
Despite pleading guilty to the sexual assault, he claimed in his asylum application that he was innocent and that he was gay — involved in a relationship with a Mr K since 2019. He also managed to receive refugee status after arguing that owing to his homosexual identity, he would be prosecuted in his home country which was a breach of his human rights.
The Home Office said it “did not accept” he was living in the UK as a gay man because of the flimsy evidence produced by him. However, due to a legal blunder, MR’s testimony went unchallenged and he was allowed to stay.
His case will now be reheard after an upper immigration tribunal backed a second challenge to the Pakistani’s asylum claim by the Home Office.
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‘Previous instances’
This is not the first instance when convicted foreign criminals in the UK have managed to receive a favourable judgement by using human rights laws. In February, a drug dealer named Shawn Rickford McLeod managed to avoid deportation after promising that he would “only smoke” cannabis and not sell it.
McLeod appealed that deporting him would breach his rights to a family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) since he had a wife and three kids in the UK. McLeod also made it clear he “intended to use cannabis” despite the deportation outcome, sharing his position on the matter with his prison and probation officers as well as Judge David Brannan.
Similarly, an Albanian criminal avoided deportation last this month after claiming his son had an aversion to foreign chicken nuggets. In another case, a Pakistani paedophile escaped deportation after a court ruled that the move would be “unduly harsh” on his children.
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