PRITI PATEL: We HAVE to stop these criminals laughing in our face

PRITI PATEL: We HAVE to stop these criminals laughing in our face

As Home Secretary, keeping the public safe is my number one priority. A key part of that mission is removing people who come to this country, abuse our hospitality, and commit crimes.

That is what the British people expect – and this Government will always act in the interests of the law-abiding majority.

So I make absolutely no apology for taking action to remove foreign offenders.

And that’s what happened yesterday when seven criminals – all Jamaican nationals – were returned home on a charter flight.

Between them, their prison sentences totalled over 46 years.

They had been convicted of a variety of violent, obscene and abhorrent crimes including rape, sexual offences against children, assault and possession of offensive weapons.

As Home Secretary, keeping the public safe is my number one priority. A key part of that mission is removing people who come to this country, abuse our hospitality, and commit crimes, writes Priti Patel

Their criminal acts will have had a devastating impact on their victims.

What sort of message would it send to them – and to the public more widely – if we simply allowed these people back onto our streets?

Quite simply, foreign nationals convicted of such offences must expect to be removed from the UK after serving their time.

Allowing them to remain should be a stain on the consciousness of our nation.

It is fact, that UK laws rightly allow us to deport foreign nationals convicted of an offence in the UK and sentenced to 12 months or more imprisonment where no exceptions stop it.

But it is also a fact that yesterday we should have removed 50 foreign national offenders to Jamaica, not seven.

I make absolutely no apology for taking action to remove foreign offenders. And that’s what happened yesterday when seven criminals – all Jamaican nationals – were returned home on a charter flight (stock photo)

This is because the current system and laws allowed an influx of legal claims – litigation to stop the removal of 43 offenders whose prison sentences shockingly ran to a combined total of 245 years.

These are offenders whose crimes included murder, attempted murder, rape and sexual offences against children, as well as drugs and firearms offences.

To add insult to the victims of these appalling crimes, many of these legal claims were made a matter of hours before the flight was due to take off, and supported by a chorus of Labour MPs and campaigners – some of whom contrived to claim that their deportation was somehow ‘racist’ and ‘disproportionate’.

Quite simply, foreign nationals convicted of such offences must expect to be removed from the UK after serving their time. Allowing them to remain should be a stain on the consciousness of our nation (stock photo)

I know Daily Mail readers will share my deep anger and frustration that these offenders were able to dodge their return to Jamaica.

This system is wrong and broken, which is why I am more deter-mined than ever to deliver the reforms that are so badly needed to fix our broken system.

Through my New Plan for Immigration, we will instil a fair but firm approach that cracks down on abuse of the system and expedites the removal of those who have no right to be here.

It’s not a problem we can solve overnight as it will require new laws to be passed in Parliament, and the Nationality and Borders Bill is pivotal to this change.

The British people have had enough – they want to see change.

And I am determined to reform our laws to deliver that change so that foreign criminals who break our laws can no longer abuse our system and laugh in the face of the British people.

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