Thread: Robber migrant can stay in UK after signing up for fitness classes

The Telegraph

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Robber migrant can stay in UK after signing up for fitness classes

Story by Charles Hymas
• 1h • 3 min read



The 21-year-old migrant’s fitness and personal wellbeing trainer wrote to the court that his training sessions have kept him ‘purposeful’ after prison

A French migrant who was jailed for robbery and drug-dealing has been allowed to stay in Britain after an immigration court heard he regularly attended his local leisure centre.
The fitness sessions he took six days a week were cited as an example of how integrated he was into UK society and of his “consistency, reliability, focus, discipline and commitment” since his release from prison.

The court heard that he had been jailed after committing a “bad robbery” that had been “terrifying for the victim” as well as dealing class A drugs.
The 21-year-old migrant, who the courts referred to as YC, came to the UK when he was three years old with his mother and was allowed to stay in the UK because of how “socially and culturally integrated” he was into British life, and that deportation would be “unduly harsh” on his British partner.
The immigration tribunal heard that YC had a troubled childhood and, having left school without any GCSEs, he joined a gang and became a “runner” for its members, which involved transporting and dealing illegal drugs.
He started dealing drugs at 17 years old before graduating to robbery at 18.
YC was charged with robbery involving a knife and two counts of supplying a class A drug, for which he was jailed for between 12 months and four years. The court did not specify the precise length of his sentence.

‘Considerable insight’ into migrant’s crimes

While he was in prison, YC showed “considerable insight into his former offending behaviour”. After he was freed from jail, he returned to his mother’s home, maintaining a “very close” relationship with his two younger siblings and helping them with their homework.
His partner also lived with them, and the pair said they intended to marry. His fitness and personal wellbeing instructor at the leisure centre wrote a letter to the court in his support, saying they had established a close relationship.
The court heard: “[YC] attends the leisure centre six times a week and the instructor shared information concerning the [YC’s] high level of consistency, reliability, focus, discipline and commitment towards these training sessions.
“[YC] also spoke in his oral evidence about how these sessions have benefited [his] mental health in helping him keep busy and purposeful since his release from prison.”

Upper Tribunal Judge Sarah Pinder concluded that YC’s “deportation from the UK would be unduly harsh for his partner” and said that he was too integrated into life in the UK.
She continued: “Overall, I do not consider that [YC’s] criminal offending and terms of imprisonment indicate that any integrative links were broken or discontinued by [YC]. I am satisfied that [YC] is socially and culturally integrated in the UK.
“I am acutely aware that not much time has passed since [YC’s] convictions and him re-entering society, following his release from custody and immigration detention.
“However, as noted by his probation officer, all of the indicators as to [YC’s] insight, remorse and self-reflection are positive and demonstrative of [YC] starting to rehabilitate himself and to take responsibility.
“These indicators have also, so far, been translated into positive and consistent engagement with supporting agencies, which is likely to ensure that [YC’s] improvements thus far are sustained and further strengthened.

“I [also] find that deportation from the UK would be unduly harsh for his partner such that [YC] also meets the statutory exception to deportation.”

Robber migrant can stay in UK after signing up for fitness classes

Pull ALL of Our Forces (Sons and Daughters) Out Of The Goofy U.K. And NATO. They are Gone; There is NOTHING you Can Do For Them

This Goofy Game of RISK is Over When You Stop Playing