Deportation – The Meaning of Persistent Offender

Danielle Cohen
By Danielle Cohen Immigration Law Solicitor Linkedin
Danielle Cohen has over 20 years of experience as a lawyer and a reputation for offering professional, honest and expert advice.
12 April 2019

The case of Binbuga (Turkey) v SSHD [2019] is a worrying development because the Court of Appeal has reiterated that a migrant can be regarded as a persistent offender for the purposes of Deportation law even if he has not committed a crime for some time. The Court had to decide if Mr Binbuga was a persistent offender for the purposes of Part 5(a) of the Nationality, Immigration & Asylum Act 2002. In March 2016 the First Tier Tribunal Judge decided that he was no longer a persistent offender since the last offence was in October 2013. However, Lord Justice Hamblen held that the overall picture is what counts when it comes to persistent offending, rather than the current position, and given that the appellant had been released from prison just seven months before the Deportation Order under appeal was made, he is a persistent offender. The Judge took a dim view of the Tribunal approach as to whether he was socially and culturally integrated in the UK because previously he was a member of a North London gang and that was not a good example of his integration into the aspects of the UK life. It also squashed the idea that Mr Binbuga ought to be treated leniently because he was a home grown criminal.