UK Government ordered to pay more than £7,000 in damages and legal costs
A Somali paedophile has been given thousands of pounds by a human rights court – and released on to the streets. Ministers have spent more than a decade trying and failing to deport Mustafa Abdi, who is thought to have cost taxpayers more than £600,000 in jail costs and legal aid.
But yesterday Strasbourg judges ordered the British government to pay the convicted child rapist thousands of pounds in damages and legal costs.
The court said Abdi was ‘wrongfully detained’ for two and a half years, breaching his right to liberty.
Ministers had decided he should remain in jail while awaiting deportation because he presented a ‘high risk’ to the public. But it emerged he was released from prison in January this year because there was no prospect of him being deported any time soon.