Court rules that Nigerian man’s personal conduct since 2023 release from prison does not show a serious threat
A judge has rejected the deportation of a Nigerian migrant who was jailed for a fake driving licence scam.
Tunde Lawal Alao, who had lived in the United Kingdom illegally for a time, was sentenced to 31 months in prison after attempting to produce counterfeit licences in a fraud that would have earned him “a great deal of money”. The Home Office later sought to remove him. An immigration court refused, finding that his conduct since leaving prison no longer amounted to a genuine and present threat to society.
Alao arrived in Britain in 2004 or 2005. He applied for leave to remain under the EU Settlement Scheme in August 2020 and was granted limited leave in February 2021, despite earlier periods of unlawful residence.
In June 2022 he was convicted of conspiracy to defraud over the production of fake driving licences between 2019 and January 2022. The scheme failed. The court was told it would have generated a great deal of money had it succeeded. He pleaded guilty, received a 31 month sentence and was ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £149. He was released in August 2023.
Since then he has worked as an office assistant. That employment, and his record after release, formed a central part of the case against removal.
Priya Solanki, sitting as a judge in the Upper Tribunal, dismissed the Home Office appeal against an earlier decision in Alao’s favour. She said the department had not shown that his personal conduct represented “a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental interests of society”.
Judge Solanki accepted that the offences were serious. She noted a public interest in protecting the public from fraud, which she described as a very serious problem in British society, and in the removal of foreign criminals. She also recorded that Alao had been in the country without leave for many years and that preventing unlawful immigration and the abuse of immigration laws is a fundamental interest of society.
She went on to find that the risk of further offending was low. A reoffending calculation put the chance at six per cent within one year and 12 per cent within two years. That risk, she said, could fall further if he took part in work aimed at the behaviour that led to the offence.
The earlier tribunal decision was, she said, well reasoned. There had been no error of law. The Home Office appeal therefore failed and Alao will not be deported on the basis of the case as presented.
By A.Ikechukwu
