Priti Patel to mount a crackdown on foreign criminals after loopholes let 2,000 dodge deportation 

The number of serious offenders deported from Britain has dropped by almost 40 per cent in the past four years.

Now Home Secretary Priti Patel is to mount a crackdown on foreign criminals whose lawyers use loopholes in the legal system to block their removal.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by The Mail on Sunday show the number of deportation orders served has dropped by nearly 2,000 – from 5,218 in 2015 to 3,225 last year.

Home Secretary Priti Patel has ordered a crackdown on foreign criminals avoiding deportation

The new crackdown comes in the wake of the notorious case of Yaqub Ahmed, a Somalian rapist whose deportation was blocked by a mutiny among plane passengers at Heathrow.

Ahmed was convicted with three other men and jailed for nine years for the sickening gang rape of a 16-year-old girl in 2007. But his lawyers blocked his removal by using human rights law, citing the state of his mental health and the alleged risk to his safety back in Somalia.

Tory MP Tom Hunt said: ‘It is deeply concerning that there has been such a drastic fall in the number of criminals being deported from this country. Our legal system must work efficiently to stop British taxpayers’ money from being abused and the safety of our constituents put at risk.’

Yaqub Ahmed, a Somalian rapist, had his deportation blocked by lawyers in 2018

Ms Patel has told officials to draw up reforms which will ensure the ‘prompt removal’ of a foreign national offender who has committed a serious criminal offence.

She wants to deploy a system which ‘deals with claims of vulnerability in a fair way’ but leads to the ‘swift dismissal of bogus claims’.

Deportation orders are issued in foreign national cases where the Home Secretary believes it to be ‘conducive to the public good’ to place a bar on a return to the UK for a period of time. This varies according to the severity of the offence.

Since 2010, some 41,037 foreign national offenders have been served with a deportation order, including 11,851 for drugs offences and 6,692 for violent crimes such as assault and robbery.

Ahmed’s flight was stopped from departing after a protest from passengers on board the plane

Last year, drug offences comprised nearly a third of all crimes for deportation with 985 cases. Papers were also served for 295 sex offences committed by foreign criminals in 2019.

Other crimes committed range from arson, kidnapping and attempted murder to perverting the course of justice, people trafficking and breaches of the peace.

Last year, for the first time since 2016, there were no deportations for terrorist offences.

The effectiveness of deportation orders has been undermined in recent years by a number of legal loopholes that have allowed offenders to stay in the UK.

A decade-long legal battle costing more than £1million was needed to deport Abu Qatada

Hate preacher Abu Qatada was eventually deported only after a decade-long legal battle which cost taxpayers more than £1 million in benefits and prison and legal fees between 2002 and 2013.

The market for challenging orders is dominated by four left-wing legal firms – Birnberg Peirce, Duncan Lewis Solicitors, Fountain Solicitors and Wilson Solicitors.

Birnberg was once described as the lawyer of choice ‘for every accused jihadist and IRA suspect’ and its clients have included jihadi bride Shamima Begum and Wiki-Leaks founder Julian Assange. 

A Whitehall source said: ‘We need to restore trust in our immigration system and that means protecting our borders, reforming the asylum system and promptly returning those who have no right to be in the UK.

‘We won’t allow our generous asylum system to be repeatedly abused by those who have no right to be here. That’s why we are introducing new measures to end the abuse of meritless asylum and protection claims, as well as ensuring that legal processes can no longer be open to unreasonable abuse and delay through repeat appeals and claims which costs the taxpayer millions each year.’