A RAPIST just hours away from deportation has won the right to stay in Britain to get married – thanks to Home Office bungling.
And Alphonse Semo, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, will be able to remain legally in the country after the wedding because of EU law.
Semo, a vicious rapist who threw his victim onto a rubbish tip after attacking her, was due to be flown back to Africa on Monday evening.
But a High Court judge ruled that because of Home Office errors he must be allowed to stay.
Mr Justice Collins said the Home Office had at first agreed to let the 53-year-old from Deptford, south-east London, get married to his long-term partner, a German national. Then the wedding was effectively cancelled by a subsequent decision “by the same Home Office – no doubt by a different department”.
The judge said he was “very reluctant” to intervene, but said: “It seems to me the Home Office really cannot be allowed to play hot and cold.” The judge added: “With considerable reluctance, I have to say he must be allowed to marry. That means there will be a prohibition against removing him.”
The judge said the Home Secretary would have to reconsider after the marriage whether or not to make a fresh attempt to deport him.
But Semo’s bride to be, Bunsana Kalonji, a refugee from the Congo, is now a German citizen and is exercising her right to work in Britain under European Community law. The pair are expected to claim that, once married, Semo will be legally entitled to remain in the UK as the spouse of an EU national.
Semo was sentenced to eight years jail in December 2002 for raping and assaulting a 38-year-old woman in Rushey Green, Catford, south-east London.
After finishing his prison sentence he was detained pending deportation.
On Tuesday last week the Home Office refused to grant Semo, who is being held at ColnSDHp brook immigration removal centre near London’s Heathrow Airport, a “movement order” allowing him to attend Hillingdon Register Office at 10.30am on Monday for the wedding.
Last Friday his legal team made an urgent application to High Court judge Mrs Justice Nicola Davies for him to be allowed to get to the register office.
The judge refused. She observed that the original wedding date was altered from March 30 to the 29th – the day he was to be deported – and described the application as “an attempt to obstruct the process of removal”. But the legal battle continued on Monday when Semo renewed his legal challenge before Mr Justice Collins. Shortly before 5pm, with Semo due to be put on a plane at 7pm, the judge blocked his removal.
Ruling that Semo must be allowed to marry, the judge said whether or not his motive was to avoid deportation was “not material”. The Home Office’s action in first allowing the marriage to be arranged, and then not allowing it to go ahead, was “not a satisfactory means of fulfilling its obligations”.
The decision prompted outrage, with Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green demanding answers from the Home Office. He said: “Many people will be rightly angry that a convicted rapist can find ways to stay in this country when he has no right to be here.”
Immigration Minister Phil Woolas pledged: “We will now seek to remove him from Britain as soon as his marriage has taken place.”
Semo was due to marry in Uxbridge, west London, yesterday but the ceremony was cancelled.
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