FOREIGN RAPIST JAILED FOR SIX YEARS WINS PAYOUT FOR UNLAWFUL DETENTION
A foreign rapist who was jailed for six years has won compensation for being unlawfully held in a migrant detention centre.In 2015, Ebou Jasseh, from Gambia, attacked a drunk woman who had been asked to leave a nightclub after telling her he was hosting a party at his flat in Watford.
Jasseh, 41, who arrived in the UK in 2004 on a six-month visa, was jailed for six years for the attack, the Mail on Sunday reported.
He had also been arrested in 2010 for allegedly sexually assaulting another woman in Watford.
He denied the accusation and no charges were brought.
Jasseh was set to be returned to Gambia when his prison sentence came to an end in 2019.
But he breached the terms of his licence and returned to jail before being held in Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre near Heathrow Airport as the Home Office prepared to send him back.
Jasseh has since mounted at least six legal challenges to the Home Office in an attempt to remain in the UK – using pleas over his mental health and the harm he would face in his home country.
He has had his application for asylum refused but has remained in the UK despite saying he would return to Gambia voluntarily.
Now it has emerged that a High Court judge ruled he should not have been placed in the centre because at that time it was unlikely the Home Office would be able to return him to Gambia.
He has been awarded “substantial” compensatory damages after the judge found that the Home Office had acted in an “oppressive” manner.
The amount is undisclosed.
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, told the Mail on Sunday: “This is a disgrace.
It’s a scandal.
How on earth has this man won compensation?
It’s a horrific case.
It shows how utterly out of touch our system is.” A Home Office spokesman said: “We make no apology for wanting to remove foreign national offenders at the earliest opportunity.
We work with law enforcement to ensure there is no barrier to deport foreign criminals, as it is in the public interest for these people to be removed swiftly.”
