Asylum seeker ‘culturally integrated in UK’ despite drug and weapons convictions
16 May 2025, 22:33
A Guinean asylum seeker is "socially and culturally integrated in the UK" despite his convictions for drug dealing and carrying weapons, an immigration tribunal heard.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
The man, who can not be named for legal reasons, came to the UK as an unaccompanied child in 2007 and has amassed a "significant number of criminal convictions".
But the Government lost an appeal against a decision to allow the man to challenge attempts to deport him.
The man was sentenced to 12 weeks' imprisonment for a criminal charge of possessing an offensive weapon in 2016, the tribunal heard.
He was later jailed for two years and eight months after being convicted of four counts of possession with intent to supply class A drugs, which triggered the Home Office move in 2018 to deport him.
The man was sentenced again in 2022 to 32 weeks' imprisonment for possession of a blade.
In June 2023, his appeal against deportation went to the first-tier tribunal, which accepted that he was "socially and culturally integrated into the UK" despite periods of homelessness and repeated criminal offending.
The first-tier tribunal also found there would be "very significant obstacles to his reintegration within Guinea" and allowed the appeal on human rights grounds.
The Home Office argued that the decision had "failed to consider all of the relevant circumstances and the judge's reasoning was inadequate", the tribunal heard.
Judge Leonie Hirst said that the first-tier tribunal considered that the man had "arrived in the UK as an unaccompanied minor in 2007 and had resided in the UK ever since; had been educated in the UK and undertaken employment; had received social services support as a minor and medical support; and had had a long-term, albeit on-and-off, relationship with his girlfriend and her family".
The man sought asylum when he arrived in the UK but this was refused and his appeal rights were "exhausted" in 2011, the tribunal heard.
Judge Hirst added: "The conclusion that despite his offending the Respondent was socially and culturally integrated into the UK was one which was open to the judge on the evidence.
"His consideration of the various factors was clearly and adequately reasoned...there was no error of law in his reasoning or conclusion."
She also said there was "no error" in the first-tier tribunal's finding that the man "would not be enough of an insider in Guinea to be accepted there and be able to operate on a day to day basis".
The judge went on to say that Lisa Davies, a consultant forensic psychologist, found that the man "presented with a low risk of reoffending and a low risk of causing serious harm if he were to reoffend".
She added: "I consider that it was entirely open to the judge to rely on her report both in relation to the Respondent's mental health and his risk of reoffending.
"There was nothing irrational in the judge's finding, on the evidence before him, that the risk posed by the Respondent was low."
