A convicted Indian paedophile has won his appeal to remain in the UK, despite Home Office efforts to deport him.
The man, who can only be identified as "HS", was jailed for 14 months in 2021 for three counts related to child sex abuse images.
He was also given a sexual harm prevention order and required to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years.
However, the paedophile successfully challenged his deportation on human rights grounds.
He was also given a sexual harm prevention order and required to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years
PA
A report from Lawrence Chester, an independent social worker, concluded that deportation would be too harsh on the man's children.
The paedophile claimed deportation would damage his right to "private and family life" under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
HS's lawyers successfully argued this defence in court, despite court judges previously preventing the man from having "direct unsupervised contact" with his children. His current contact is reportedly limited to video calls.
The case is now pending further appeals by the Home Office.
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The paedophile claimed deportation would damage his right to 'private and family life' under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights
GettyThe Indian national first came to the UK in 2002, remaining illegally before marrying in 2010. He later gained temporary permission to stay as a spouse.
Upper tribunal judges Melissa Canavan and Matthew Hoffman raised serious concerns about the case's handling. They criticised the reliance on an independent social worker's report, which they said had "startling omissions".
The judges stated: "We find the independent social worker's failure to consider the nature of the appellant's offending... as a safeguarding issue that needed to be evaluated was an astonishing oversight."
They added that the ruling had failed to acknowledge the "obvious weaknesses" in the report.
Robert Jenrick called the case a 'madness'
GB News"We also find that the judge failed to take into account the nature of the applicant's offending, which involved child pornography, and how this factored into the issue of contact with his children," the judges added.
Tory MP and leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick called the case a "madness". He cited it as another example of misuse of the ECHR.
“We cannot even remove sick paedophiles from our streets because of spurious ECHR claims. How can anyone defend this madness?” he told the Daily Mail.
“We must put the safety of the British people first and leave the ECHR immediately.”
