SallyRand

Looked up that one myself and found this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...e-stay-UK.html

"Asylum seeker who left girl, 12, to die after hit-and-run can stay in UK... thanks to the Human Rights Act David Cameron promised her father he'd scrap"

" Father says 'criminals have free rein' after losing battle to deport driver
Failed asylum seeker Aso Mohammed Ibrahim had a string of convictions
Outcome 'may have been different' if Iraqi didn't have children, judges say

David Cameron was accused last night of breaking a personal pledge to scrap the Human Rights Act after a failed asylum seeker who killed a 12-year-old girl used the discredited law to stay in Britain.

Aso Mohammed Ibrahim knocked down Amy Houston and left her to ?die like a dog? under the wheels of his car. He was driving while disqualified and after the little girl?s death he committed a string of further offences.

Earlier this year Mr Cameron wrote to Amy?s father promising reforms that would ensure ?that rights are better balanced against responsibilities?.

He said the Human Rights Act would be replaced by a British Bill of Rights.

But yesterday Ibrahim, an Iraqi Kurd, won his lengthy fight to stay in Britain.
Aso Mohammed Ibrahim
Amy Houston

'Ridiculous': Aso Mohammed Ibrahim will be allowed to remain in the UK despite leaving Amy Houston, 12, dying under the wheels of his car in November 2003, because deporting him would 'breach his human rights'

Immigration judges ruled that sending him home would breach his right to a ?private and family life? as he has now fathered two children in the UK.

Last night Amy?s father Paul branded the Act an ?abomination to civilised society?.

He said: ?This decision shows the Human Rights Act to be nothing more than a charter for thieves, killers, terrorists and illegal immigrants.?

The ruling heaped pressure on Mr Cameron to reinstate a Tory pre-election pledge to abolish the HRA and replace it with a British Bill of Rights. He stated that pledge unequivocally in a letter to Mr Houston, written in January when he was still Leader of the Opposition, and shortly after the death of his son Ivan.

It began: ?As someone who sadly has been recently bereaved, I do have a little idea of what you must have been through.?

Last night Mr Houston, a 41-year-old engineer, made a direct plea to Mr Cameron to think again.

He said: ?He needs to take a long, hard look at himself and make the right decision for this country because as it stands the Human Rights Act is on the side of criminals, terrorists and thieves against law-abiding citizens.

?He wrote to me to say he would bring in the British Bill of Rights but that appears to have been put in the back burner because of the Coalition.

?I don?t want to see this matter sidelined. I think it needs to be placed very firmly on the agenda again. If he has got the courage of his convictions that is what he will do.
Angry: Paul Houston, father of Amy, said today: 'This is a perversity of our society.'

Angry: Paul Houston, father of Amy, said today: 'This is a perversity of our society'

?The law does need to be changed so that it properly represents everyone ? not just this awful minority who ruin people?s lives.?

Mr Houston, of Darwen, Lancashire, said he was ?absolutely devastated? by the decision to allow Ibrahim to stay in the country indefinitely.

?How can he say he?s deprived of his right to a family life? The only person deprived of a family life is me. Amy was my family.?

Amy was Mr Houston?s only child and for medical reasons he is unable to have any more children.

The case fuelled deep concern on the Tory backbenches. One MP branded the Act the ?Criminals? Rights Act? and repeated calls for it to be scrapped.

No minister was prepared to comment directly about the case, but Downing Street issued a statement ?sharing Mr Houston?s anger?. The UK Border Agency said it was ?extremely disappointed? with the decision.

Ibrahim, now 33, arrived in Britain hidden in the back of a lorry in January 2001. His application for asylum was refused and a subsequent appeal in November 2002 failed, but he was never sent home.

In 2003, while serving a nine-month driving ban for not having insurance or a licence, he ploughed into Amy near her mother?s home in Blackburn.

He ran away, leaving her conscious and trapped beneath the wheels of his black Rover. Six hours later her father had to take the heartbreaking decision to turn off her life-support system.

But despite leaving Amy to die, Ibrahim was jailed for just four months after admitting driving while disqualified and failing to stop after an accident.

Since his release from prison he has accrued a string of further convictions, including more driving offences, harassment and cautions for burglary and theft.

'The image of Amy taking her final breath, dying a foot away from me as I sat by her bedside holding her hand praying for a miracle, will stay with me till the day I die.'


He also met a British woman, Christina Richardson, and fathered two children with her, Harry, four, and Zara, three.

Border Agency officials finally began attempts to remove him from the country in October 2008.

Ibrahim?s lawyers argued sending him back to Iraq would breach Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, which guarantees his right to a private and family life with his children.

When the case first came before an immigration judge in June last year, Home Office lawyers said Ibrahim should be removed because of his persistent criminality.

Ibrahim told the court he had became a father figure to Miss Richardson?s two children from a previous relationship and was even helping them with their homework.

This account was dismissed as ?clearly not credible? after Ibrahim admitted he could barely speak English.

The judge accepted that Ibrahim?s behaviour was ?abhorrent? and branded his evidence ?contradictory and unsatisfactory?. However he ruled that he had developed a ?significant and substantial? relationship with the children and was acting as their father.
Only child: Amy's death deprived Mr Houston of family life as he is unable to have further children

Only child: Amy's death deprived Mr Houston of family life as he is unable to have further children

The UK Border Agency launched an appeal against the decision. Lawyers for the agency argued that there was little evidence that he was living at the same address as his own children.

But yesterday the Upper Immigration Tribunal threw out the appeal, saying the judge had considered the case in a ?legally correct? way.

In a letter to the tribunal, Mr Houston made an impassioned plea for Ibrahim to be sent back to Iraq, saying his right to a family life with Amy should outweigh the rights of Ibrahim.

He wrote: ?On the evening of November 23 2003, Mr Ibrahim struck Amy. He didn?t kill her outright, she was still conscious.

?She was fully aware of what was happening around her even though she had the full weight of the engine block of the car on top of her, she was crying because she was frightened and in a lot of pain... he could have at least tried to help.

?Amy suffered for six hours before the doctors advised me to switch off the life support machine . . . it was highly unlikely she would survive and if she was to live would be a ?cabbage?.

?The image of Amy taking her final breath, dying a foot away from me as I sat by her bedside holding her hand praying for a miracle, will stay with me till the day I die.?

Last night Mr Houston said: ?No wonder asylum seekers are queuing up at the borders to get in when they see decisions like this.

?They realise that whatever they do, be it burglar, rape or murder, they can use the laws to ensure they are able to stay in Britain. ?The immigration judges have ruled he had a right to a family life.

What about my right to a family life with my daughter?

?That was taken away in the most horrendously cruel fashion by a serial criminal who has never contributed to our society.?

He pledged to continue his seven-year fight for justice and is seeking legal advice over the possibility of a judicial review.

Ministers are considering whether to take the case to the Court of Appeal.
David Cameron wrote a letter to Mr Houston offering his condolences and telling him of his plans to change the law

Backbench Tory MPs said the case showed how the Human Rights Act was preventing ministers from controlling Britain?s borders.

MP Douglas Carswell said: ?If we take the tribunal?s findings to their logical conclusion we would leave an open door to the world.?

This is the latest in a string of cases to provoke outrage over the Act.

Last month Learco Chindamo, who stabbed headmaster Philip Lawrence to death, was returned to jail over an alleged robbery.

In opposition, the Prime Minister cited the failure to deport Chindamo as a prime reason why the law should be scrapped.

The Tories campaigned on a promise to bring in a British Bill of Rights to replace Labour?s Human Rights Act, but within weeks of the General Election result, the pledge was downgraded and replaced by a commitment to a review, effectively kicking the policy into the long grass.

A Downing Street spokesman said: ?We fully understand Mr Houston?s distress and frustration at what has happened, and we share his anger.

?The Government is committed to establishing a Commission during 2011 to investigate the creation of a UK Bill of Rights that protects and extends British liberties."