Afghanistan is “too dangerous” for a sex offender asylum seeker ordered to return home because he continued to act “inappropriately” around women, a court has determined.
Court documents have revealed that the unnamed male asylum seeker, 31, was convicted of “outraging public decency and exposure” in 2017, jailed for 12 weeks and placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register but allowed to stay in the UK.
During asylum appeal hearings, several doctors reportedly stated he “continues to act inappropriately towards females”.
Despite this, a judge agreed with the law firm handling his appeal in 2020 that his “risky behaviours” would expose him to “ill-treatment” in Taliban-run Afghanistan, his home country.
News of the case has sparked outrage among those critical of the handling of asylum seekers in the UK, who have branded it “angering”, with the Home Office vowing to reinvestigate the case.
Sky News reported that the judge overseeing the case agreed that he would be placed at risk of “mob violence” if he was returned to his country of origin and granted refugee status.
Hearing about the news this afternoon, GB News presenter Darren Grimes led the outrage, stating it was “angering” in a post on X, formerly Twitter, with others agreeing.
He wrote: “This is so angering, b****y hell! A convicted sex offender, who, according to court documents, ‘continues to act ‘inappropriately’ around females’, was allowed to stay in Britain, because, guess what?
“Since the Taliban retook Afghanistan, the UK isn’t able to deport people there.”
Responding to his post, another user added: “Why should we be stuck with them? First on a plane to Rwanda.”
And a third said: “We don’t seem to be able to deport people to anywhere?”
The Home Office has responded to the outrage by vowing to investigate the case, with minister Laura Farris saying her preference would be to remove foreign sex offenders from the UK.
She said: “It is absolutely right that the public expect all foreign offenders to be deported when their sentences are completed. I will look into that particular case.”
Foreign offenders only face automatic deportation if they receive a year-long jail sentence or more.
But the Government would like to go further, Ms Harris said, saying her “preference” would be that “by and large” foreign sex offenders “should be removed from the UK”.
