Foreign Offenders Can Stay Here

Gordon Brown, Labour Party Conference 2007 :

But let me be clear any newcomer to Britain who is caught selling drugs or using guns will be thrown out. No-one who sells drugs to our children or uses guns has the right to stay in our country.

However, if you're a murderer or a sex offender, no worries.

"A victim of a serial sex attacker is "appalled" that he will not be deported in order to protect his human rights. An Asylum and Immigration Tribunal upheld a ruling which blocked moves by the Home Office to deport the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons. Mr Justice Hodge said the 20-year-old should stay in the UK as he came here from Sierra Leone, aged six, and had virtually no family in West Africa. "I am appalled by the decision," she said. "How is it right that somebody who has offended so seriously against defenceless women is allowed to remain in this country?

Her attacker had admitted indecently assaulting 11 women in the past five years. He is being allowed to stay in the UK after his release under article eight of the Human Rights Act, which gives a person a right to a family life."

The judge, Henry Hodge, is the husband of Labour's Margaret Hodge.