Afghan migrant who carried out 'horrific' bottle attack on 14-year-old girl and her mother allowed to stay in UK

The migrant, who has been anonymised as AR, committed a number of offences shortly after he arrived in the UK, including threatening to kill his flatmate.

But the Home Office's attempt to remove his refugee status was deemed a "hopeless submission" by an immigration judge, despite the "serious harm" of his offences.

It was ruled that the medication used to treat AR's mental health issues had been successful and he was no longer a danger to society.

Any attempt to ignore this treatment was "hopeless", Upper Tier Tribunal Judge Elizabeth Ruddick said as she maintained AR's refugee status.

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The court was told AR, who was born in Afghanistan in 1973, had a history of violent behaviour and has been convicted of a number of crimes since he moved to the UK in 1999.

He had immediately claimed asylum, saying he faced persecution from the Taliban.

In 2000, he was arrested for threatening to kill his flatmate. He pleaded guilty to affray and was kept in a mental health facility.

A year later, he was granted indefinite leave to remain.

In 2003, AR assaulted a pub doorman and was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He also assaulted a neighbour and set fire to his garden in 2007, for which he was convicted of common assault and destruction of property.

The refugee was sentenced to a two-year community rehabilitation order, but would go on to commit a "horrific crime" that same year while shopping for alcohol.

After buying a bottle of wine from a shop owned by a family known to him, AR started making comments about God and religion, and the wife of the proprietor asked him to leave', the hearing was told .

"He responded by hitting her and her 14-year-old daughter with the bottle repeatedly and making violent threats against all members of the family.

"He then ran out of the shop and into another shop, where he slapped the owner in the face. The police were called and he was arrested."

After pleading guilty, AR was convicted of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm, common assault and breach of conditional discharge.

Following a psychiatric assessment, a consultant who found he was 'acutely psychotic' when he had committed the offences.

A report stated that he could harm the public if his mental health was not continuously treated.

He was sentenced to a minimum of a year and a half in prison but would be held indefinitely until a parole board was satisfied he no longer posed a threat.

But in 2008, he stopped taking his medication and quickly began "expressing delusional beliefs and exhibiting inappropriate behaviour" and he was taken to a secure mental health facility.

He committed his final offence in 2012 when he attacked a member of staff who had confronted him about smoking a legal high.

He was convicted of racially/religiously aggravated common assault/beating and sentenced to one day in prison.

AR was briefly moved from hospital to prison in 2017, but was taken back after his mental health deteriorated.

It was at this point he was prescribed clozapine, which finally delivered results.

AR then showed "remarkable improvement" with the medication, the hearing was told, as he stopped showing psychotic symptoms and was allowed unescorted leave from the premises.

In 2018, the Home Office applied to remove AR's refugee status in 2018, but it had never been finalised.

The attempt to remove his status was renewed, but healthcare professionals spoke out on AR's behalf because they believed his managed schizoaffective disorder meant that he was no longer a threat.

The Home Office said that AR should be assessed on his potential danger and that his treatment should not be factored into the decision.

It added that he had failed to complete a victim empathy course in 2016, however it was heard that AR was in hospital and unable to do so at the time.

The judge said: 'It is important to recognise how many of these factors refer to [AR's] conduct in the past and the present: his medication had changed, he had made excellent progress, he had gained insight into his condition, he had been on unescorted release in the community for five nights a week, and he had not offended in any way for more than 12 years.

"His insight into his illness and voluntary compliance with treatment were considered to be highly significant factors. In other words, the First Tier Tribunal did not find that [AR] remained a danger to the community but that that danger could be mitigated by measures of containment and supervision. It found that [AR] himself had changed."

Judge Ruddick ruled that AR's recovery and treatment had to be taken into account.

She continued: "If someone's offending was linked to anger, similarly, any progress they had made through anger management courses and therapy would fall to be disregarded.

"This is not consistent with the approach taken by probation officers, to which courts and tribunals are generally required to give considerable weight as expressing an expert assessment of future risk.

"Pre-sentence and OASys reports routinely consider the factors that contributed to an individual's offending behaviour, and whether any of those factors have been addressed.

"This often includes considering how a person's behaviour may have changed as a result, for example, of courses in anger management or victim empathy. Indeed, it is the respondent's position in this appeal that [AR's] failure to complete a course in victim empathy while in prison was of crucial relevance.

"This is a truly hopeless submission. The OASys report makes it clear that the reason that [AR] had not completed the Victim Empathy course was that it was a course offered only in prison, and that he had not completed it because he had been transferred to hospital.

"Compliance - voluntary or coerced - had nothing to do with it. Even if he had refused to complete the course prior to his transfer to hospital in 2016, it is difficult to see the relevance, let alone the fundamental importance, of this fact to [AR's] compliance with medication and treatment nine years later.

"For these reasons, the decision of the First-tier Tribunal contained no errors of law requiring it to be set aside."