Iraqi sex offender who wants to be deported still in UK after three years, MP says

An Iraqi sex offender who wants to return to Iraq has been waiting to be deported for three years due to Home Office failures, an MP has said.

The sex offender has been issued with a one-way travel document – in the place of a passport – from the Iraqi embassy which expires at the end of May, meaning time is running out for him to be removed from the country.

The Iraqi man has asked his local MP in Newport, Labour MP Jessica Morden, to help him in his attempts to return home.

Ms Morden asked Home Office minister Michael Tomlinson about the case in the Commons. She said the man had originally lied about his name and country of origin and breached the terms of his licence.

“The courts want him returned home,” she said. “He wants to be returned home and will even pay for his flight but for some unfathomable reason the Home Office seem incapable of authorising or allowing this. And it’s been three years, why?”

The Iraqi man was convicted in 2019 of sex offences, including possession and distribution of indecent images. He was served with a deportation order while in prison that year.

In 2023, the man had to pay a fine for breaching the terms of the sex offenders register.

Mr Tomlinson, minister for illegal migration, responded by saying that the government had been increasing the number of foreign criminals who are deported from the UK, while the “party opposite have been campaigning to prevent the removal of foreign criminals.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “It is longstanding government policy that we do not comment on individual cases.”