Gambian national Joachim Cardos, 43, was jailed for eight years for rape and sentenced to a further three years for dealing the Class B drug cannabis.
Despite a law that foreign nationals guilty of serious crimes should automatically be deported, the sex offender launched a human rights challenge, arguing that his health would suffer if he was sent back to his West African homeland.
While serving his prison sentence at HMP Dumfries, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and transferred to the State Hospital at Carstairs, Lanarkshire.
Cardos was later returned to the prison after doctors found his condition could be controlled with medication.
Now, in a move that justice campaigners have called ‘an insult to his victim’, an immigration tribunal has ruled that the convicted rapist can remain in the UK because he would ‘experience genuine difficulties being able to access a regular supply of his necessary medications’ if deported.
The Home Office offered to give him enough medicine to last three months, plus £1,250 to buy further supplies of the prescription drugs he needs.
However, he refused the offer and tribunal judges ruled that sending him back to Gambia would potentially breach his human rights and put him at risk of ‘social isolation and stigmatisation’.
Cardos arrived in Britain in June 2007 on a visitor visa.
When his leave to remain expired in June 2008, he stayed on illegally, living in Edinburgh.
Sentencing him for the rape and drug dealing offences in July 2012, Judge Lord Hardie said there was a high risk of committing further crimes.
He described the sex offender as a danger to women and said that his ‘violent and persistent’ attack, during which he repeatedly threatened to kill his 26-year-old victim, had had a ‘devastating’ impact on her.
Critics claimed the decision to allow him to remain demonstrated that the UK’s immigration system was putting the rights of foreign criminals ahead of public safety or the feelings of victims.
Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Russell Findlay said: ‘This rapist’s victim may well despair at the unsatisfactory outcome of these protracted legal proceedings, which again call into question the effectiveness of removing dangerous overseas criminals from our streets.’
(The Sun)
