Migrant Who Sexually Assaulted Woman Stays in UK After Claiming He is Gay

A Pakistani man who was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman and lived in Britain illegally for 11 years was allowed to stay after he claimed he was gay, despite offering no evidence. The Telegraph has the story.

The sex offender had been living in the UK illegally for 11 years but was granted refugee status after arguing he was homosexual and would face persecution in his home country in breach of his human rights.

The unnamed 53-year-old made his asylum claim and insisted he was gay just months after he was convicted of assaulting the woman.

He was allowed to stay in the UK by an asylum court despite there being a lack of evidence that he was homosexual, official judgments show. The Home Office said it “did not accept he was living in the UK as a gay man” because of his flimsy evidence, the court was told.

However, owing to a legal blunder, his testimony went unchallenged and the man was allowed to stay in April last year.

Now, however, his case will be reheard after an upper immigration tribunal backed a second challenge to the Pakistani’s asylum claim by the Home Office.

The case, disclosed in court papers, is the latest example exposed by the Telegraph where migrants or convicted foreign criminals have won the right to remain in the UK or halt their deportations, often by citing breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

They include an Albanian criminal who avoided deportation after claiming his son had an aversion to foreign chicken nuggets, and a Pakistani paedophile who was jailed for child sex offences but escaped removal from the UK as it would be “unduly harsh” on his own children.

There are a record 34,169 outstanding immigration appeals, largely on human rights grounds, which threaten to hamper Labour’s efforts to fast-track removal of illegal migrants. Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to close a loophole that enabled a Gaza family to come to the UK after applying under a Ukrainian refugee scheme.

The Pakistani, known only as MR, came to the UK in 2006 as a student but overstayed his visa which ran out in December 2006. He applied for leave to remain on human rights grounds in 2012 but the Home Office rejected it that year.

In May 2017, he was arrested by police and in the same year he was convicted for sexually assaulting a woman by touching. A month later, he claimed asylum – asserting a “fear of persecution” in Pakistan if he were to be deported.

Despite pleading guilty to the sex assault, he claimed in his asylum application that he was innocent and that he was gay. However, then Home Secretary Suella Braverman refused him leave to remain. Mrs Braverman said there was “no evidence of a substantial relationship being in place” despite MR claiming he was in a gay relationship.

Worth reading in full.