A cocaine trafficker who fled Kosovo as a 13-year-old after watching his parents be murdered is to be deported.
The dad-of-two, who was granted anonymity by the Immigration Tribunal, was a member of a Merseyside organised crime gang convicted of trying to smuggle £3million worth of Class A and B drugs into Dublin. He was jailed for six years for his involvement in the plot at Liverpool Crown Court in January, 2019.
The Home Office signed a deportation order in July, 2019, but he appealed to the First Tier Tribunal and the deportation order was quashed. However the Home Office appealed the decision and won, meaning the man is set to be removed from the UK.
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The appeal heard how the man's children are likely to suffer considerable psychological distress by being separated from their dad, with the court hearing how his daughter developed "bald patches" and bit the skin around her fingernails until it bled while he was in jail.
However Upper Tribunal Judge Susan Kabede ruled that his case fell short of the "very compelling circumstances" needed to outweigh the public interest in his deportation. In a considerable blow to his chances, the court heard that he had been released from prison on licence in June, 2021, only to be re-arrested two months later in possession of three mobile phones, 300g of white powder and "cannabis edible sweets".
The tribunal heard he denied the white powder in his car was an illicit drug and claimed it was some sort of bodybuilding powder, but there was also 43g of cocaine discovered in his bedroom. The new arrest saw his licence revoked and he was returned to prison, but he was released again on bail in November last year.
The tribunal was told how the man fled the war in Kosovo in 1998 after his family home was torched and he and his brother witnessed his parents being murdered. The brothers lived in a Red Cross refugee camp until 2000, when a cousin in Italy arranged for them to be taken to the UK, where they were fostered by a family in Merseyside. The brothers grew close to the family and later adopted their names.
In 2004, he began a relationship with a British woman and the pair had two children before they split up. According to a written ruling from the Immigration Tribunal, he was in and out of trouble with the law for relatively minor offences between 2006 and 2010.
However he later became involved in serious organised crime and was arrested after a joint investigation between the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Metropolitan Police. The taskforce caught the gang with 30kg of cocaine, 45kg of cannabis, 15kg of MDMA and 2kg of ketamine.
Judge Kabede found that while the children's best interests were served in him remaining in the UK, the public interest still lay in him being deported for his crimes. She described the new arrest as "significantly damaging to his case".
She wrote: "In the circumstances it seems to me that whilst the children have undoubtedly been adversely affected by their father's absence during his incarceration, and will undoubtedly be adversely affected by his enforced return to Kosovo, and whilst their separation may well be harsh, the evidence before me does not reach the high threshold of demonstrating undue hardship.
"The children have become accustomed to separation from their father for the past three years and, aside from the brief period of time following his release from prison and prior to his recall to prison, have only resumed contact with him outside prison since November 2021."
