A failed asylum seeker jailed for child rape is to receive around £50,000 in damages after a judge ruled he had been unlawfully kept behind bars while the Home Office tried to deport him to Somalia.He won the payout despite being offered the opportunity to go voluntarily - but he preferred to stay in a British prison with free bed and board. The pay-out is all the more astonishing because the authorities effectively have little choice but to keep him in prison. He cannot be let out on to the streets in Britain because he is considered a danger to the public - especially women. But equally, it is very difficult to deported him back to Somalia, despite failing in his asylum application.
Until July no airline was willing to fly compulsory deportees there, and only one will do so now - but it is dealing with a backlog. The man himself, meanwhile, refuses to go voluntarily because he says it is too dangerous for him back home.
He has, in effect, elected to stay in Britain - yet is claiming compensation for doing so. All the while, on top of his £50,000 damages and £100,000 legal fees paid by the taxpayer, he is costing more than £37,000 a year to keep in prison. His stay in prison beyond his sentence has already cost well over £100,000 to the taxpayer. And he is also entitled to remain anonymous in the media.
This is because the Court of Appeal follows the convention in other European courts that publicly naming asylum seekers may put them at danger from those they may be fleeing from.
The 30-year-old entered Britain illegally on a false Kenyan passport in 1995, and within three years had raped a 13-year old girl at knifepoint. Probation officers warned that if freed he might stalk his victim and attack her again, and that he poses a risk to all women, and the public in general. He has been held in prison since his sentence ended in 2003, while officials bid to deport him to Somalia. He used Legal Aid, pushing his law fees for the taxpayer of up to £100,000, to launch a High Court appeal to be freed, along with a claim for compensation for being unlawfully imprisoned - in spite of the fact that he has been free to return to his homeland for more than three years.
Yesterday, astonishingly, his claim was partially accepted by High Court judge Mr Justice CalvertSmith who ruled that although the failed asylum seeker had sought to remain in Britain 'by hook or by crook', he had been unlawfully detained for 20 months.
The rapist - who has been granted the cloak of anyonymity, and can be known only as 'A' - will accordingly be paid compensation likely to run to £50,000, enough to buy many houses in his homeland.
The failed asylum seeker plans to appeal any imminent bid to forcibly deport him, but if he is successfully sent back his legal winnings will be sent to him there.