This case concerns a foreign criminal, Mr Dabo, who argued that deporting him would breach his human rights. The First-tier Tribunal (“FtT”) dismissed his protection claim but allowed his appeal against deportation on Article 8 (private life) grounds. The Secretary of State for the Home Department (“SSHD”) appealed to the Upper Tribunal (“UT”), which dismissed her appeal and upheld the FtT’s decision. She has now appealed further.
Written by Lorraine Hon, Solicitor
Background
For context, Mr Dabo arrived in the UK in 2007, aged 16, as an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child. He has made three claims for asylum, all of which have failed. Before the deportation order was issued, Mr Dabo was a persistent offender with 19 convictions for 34 offences. In 2016, he was convicted of 4 counts of possession of Class A drugs (heroin and cocaine) with intent to supply, and sentenced to 2 years 8 months’ imprisonment. He also has a long-term girlfriend but he does not cohabit with her.
Mr Dabo raised protection and human rights claims. The FtT judge rejected the protection aspect of the claim and found that Mr Dabo ‘s article 8 private life claim was strong enough to meet the elevated threshold of “very compelling circumstances” over and above the rules, and therefore deportation would be a disproportionate interference with his private life established in the UK.
The SSHD contends that there were material errors of law in the FtT decision, and the UT erred in upholding it because:
- (1) the judge erred in his approach to the question whether Mr Dabo was socially and culturally integrated into the UK, by failing to consider whether his integration was into the lawful social structure of the UK and whether any such integration had been broken by his offending;
- (2) the judge, when considering whether there were very significant obstacles to Mr Dabo’s reintegration into Guinea, only addressed the question of what obstacles there were to reintegration, without carrying out an evaluation of whether the elevated threshold of “very significant” was met, i.e. whether those obstacles would prevent or seriously inhibit his reintegration. Alternatively, if such an evaluation was carried out, the judge failed to explain why the threshold was met.
Court of Appeal Decision
Regarding ground 1, the Court of Appeal does not accept that the judge made an error by determining whether Mr Dabo was socially and culturally integrated in the UK in the first place, rather than looking at the position as at the date of the hearing (as in after he had been convicted of a number of offences for which he received custodial sentences). The judge made the assessment based on Mr Dabo’s time since 2007 until the date of the hearing, taken into account all his time in the UK. Therefore, the UT was right to reject this ground of SSHD’s appeal.
Regarding ground 2, the Court of Appeal held that the judge had the “very serious obstacles” test well in mind as eh referred to it in a number of paragraphs in the decision and reached the conclusion that Mr Dabo “will not be enough of an insider so as to have a reasonable opportunity to be accepted [in Guinea] and be able to operate [there] on a day to day basis.” That conclusion is reinforced by findings made later in the FtT decision in a number of paragraphs which find that Mr Dabo has no solid ties in his home country and that he will face very significant difficulties and may become destitute on return. Therefore, ground 2 also failed.
Our thoughts
From this case, we can see that it is probable for a person with criminal records to remain in the UK considering one can show that they have a genuine and subsisting relationship with a qualifying partner or there are very compelling circumstances over and above which would make deportation a breach of their human rights.
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