Nigerian convicted of fraud in UK avoids deportation due to autistic children

Olufemi Ojaleye, a Nigerian convicted of fraud in the UK, has avoided deportation after a tribunal ruled that his children’s special needs warranted his continued stay in the country.

Ojaleye was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for playing a leading role in a sophisticated fraud, conducted over a sustained period, and for profiting from the COVID-related bounce back loan scheme.

The loan was introduced in 2020 to support businesses affected by COVID-19, allowing them to borrow between £2,000 and £50,000 at low interest rates.

The case, heard last month, was disclosed in court papers published on Monday.

UK law mandates that the deportation of foreign criminals is in the public interest, and that the more serious the offence, the greater the likelihood of deportation.

There are, however, two exceptions.

THE EXCEPTIONS

One is where the immigrant criminal has lawfully resided in the UK for most of his/her life, and is socially and culturally integrated into the UK, and where there would be significant obstacles to their reintegration in the country to which they would be deported.

The other exception is where the immigrant criminal “has a genuine and subsisting relationship with a qualifying partner, or a genuine and subsisting parental relationship with a qualifying child”, and the effect of their deportation on the partner or child would be “unduly harsh”.

A “qualifying child” is a child who is British or who has lived in the UK for a continuous period of at least seven years.

Ojaleye is the father of four British children who have two different mothers.

Two of the children have been diagnosed with autism and were deemed to have “very significant additional needs”, the court papers showed.

SPECIAL NEEDS

His lawyers argued that the autism impacts “every aspect of [their] daily life” and they “need support with even the smallest tasks such as dressing, eating, and toileting”.

They told the court that the children needed structure and consistency to cope with daily routines.

However, solicitors from the UK secretary of state for the home department told the court that the reasons were insufficient, arguing that Ojaleye already spent a chunk of time in prison — proof that the children could cope without his presence.

In counter-arguments, Ojaleye’s lawyers said his children visited him in prison.

If Ojaleye were to be deported, the affected children’s mother said “travelling to Nigeria to visit him would be impossible” because of their needs, the upper tribunal heard.

The court also heard that the appellant arrived in the UK as a visitor in September 2002 and has lived in the country lawfully for most of the period. He only visited Nigeria in 2004.

The case was one of a record 41,987 outstanding immigration appeals, most of them on human rights grounds.

The situation threatens to hamper the government’s renewed efforts to fast-track the removal of illegal migrants.