Court rules drug dealer can stay in UK because deporting him would upset his mother

A court has ruled that a Portuguese robber and drug dealer remain in the UK because allowing him to be deported would upset his mother. 

Fabio Indiai used Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights to argue that if he was forcibly removed from Britain it would harm his mother’s mental health.  

The article protects an individual’s right to a family or private life.

In 2021, Indiai was sent to prison for four years and two months for intent to supply class A drugs after police caught him with more than £1,000 of cocaine, MDMA, and ketamine.

Before this, several years earlier in 2012,  he had served 18-months in a youth jail for robbery.

He was not deported by the home office in 2014 but after his most recent offences they sought to remove him. 

The Times reported that Indiai used Article 8 to challenge the decision and won. The Judge cited the impact on his mother of this decision where he said she was reliant on Indiai for ‘day-to-day support.’

Indiai is not the first person to use article 8 to avoid deportation.

In 2021, an Albanian asylum seeker claimed he was the victim of human trafficking and if he was deported it would put him at risk of being re-trafficked.

His case was at first dismissed but when it was escalated from a first-tier immigration tribunal to the Upper Tribunal.