Man ‘cannot be deported’ after sex with schoolgirls

By JOHN ASTON
Published on 26/01/2013 00:00

A MAN who was part of a group of immigrants who lured local schoolgirls to a house for sex cannot be deported because he is a member of a “persecuted tribe”, it has been disclosed.

Jumaa Kater Saleh, now aged 24, went to court in a bid to claim damages for unlawful detention during the Government’s failed bid to send him back to Sudan.

Saleh was sentenced in May 2008 to four years’ detention in a young offenders’ institution for having sexual activity with a female under 16.

Saleh asked deputy High Court judge Philip Mott QC for a declaration that he had been wrongfully detained, entitling him to damages under human rights laws.

The judge, sitting at London’s High Court, said it was accepted Saleh was a member of a tribe in the Sudan, the Zaghawa, which was subject to widespread persecution and it was “not possible” to return him to Sudan.

Rejecting his application, Judge Mott ruled there was no evidence of him being held unlawfully or unreasonably at any time and his case failed “on all grounds”.

The judge described how Saleh, who arrived in the UK in November 2004 hidden in a lorry, was one of a group of five immigrants who had lured schoolgirls to a house for sex, two of whom were aged 13 and one 14.