How does keeping foreign-born killers make UK safer, Nick asks their lawyer

12 February 2020, 09:42

Nick Ferrari challenged the lawyer for some of the foreign-born criminals who were saved from deportation, asking her how them staying here makes the UK safer.

Boris Johnson is said to be furious that the courts stopped many of the so-called Jamaica 50 from getting on the flight to Jamaica yesterday over issues with their mobile phones.

Nick spoke to Maria Thomas, a solicitor at Duncan Lewis who represented a number of the Jamaica 50, and ended up rowing over the reasons for keeping them here.

He said: "The Times says that you are acting for 14 of the 17 people, so the chances are you are acting for the killer. Do you think that's made Britain a safer place?"

Ms Thomas insisted: "We're not acting for anyone convicted of manslaughter. But the point is that there may well be some that the government can deport under the powers that they have available to them.

"But they must still follow the appropriate and correct procedures because otherwise they cannot be held accountable.

"These people have already been processed by the criminal justice system. They've been punished for their crime. Many of the people on board have only had a single conviction."

But that led Nick to ask: "How many rapes do they have to do then? One? Two?"

Ms Thomas responded: "The point I'm trying to make is that someone who is born here and someone who came here as a two- or three-year-old, going through the same justice system, they are being punished for their crime twice or even three times."

Nick ended by saying: "I wonder how their victims feel."

Watch the full exchange at the top of the page.