Migrant paedophile welcomed into Britain because stopping him would 'breach his human rights'

A migrant paedophile was allowed into Britain after it was ruled that stopping him would violate his human rights.

Jamaican national Oniel Spence, now 43, applied to enter the UK in 2023 to join his wife and child, but was blocked by the Home Office.

Spence, while in the United States, committed a sexual offence against an underage girl in 2008, when he was 25.

Sentenced to three years' behind bars, he was deported to Jamaica after serving 18 months.

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Home Office officials said his exclusion from Britain would be "conducive to the public good".

But Spence lodged an appeal at the lower immigration tribunal, winning permission to enter the UK, the Mail revealed.

Spence's wife - whom he met in 2006 - and 11-year-old daughter are both British nationals who have always lived in the UK.

His lawyers argued his exclusion would infringe upon Article 8 of the controversial European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - the right to a private and family life.

Then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper brought an appeal to upper immigration tribunals, but it was refused - which led Shabana Mahmood to bring a further case to the Court of Appeal.

Senior judges have now overturned the original decision and ordered it to be re-heard by the first-tier tribunal.

In their argument, Spence's lawyers said he was "primarily sexually attracted to adults", which judges noted meant there was some "residual or secondary" level of sexual attraction to children.

Spence admitted to the Home Office: "I started partying with a female and she was underage."

The Jamaican paedophile claimed he "learned" from his sexual offence and said it was an isolated incident in a bar.

In the first appeal, judges determined Spence to be "sexually attracted to children and has pursued relationships with children in the past".

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The court added: "The appellant's attempts to downplay his sexual involvement with children and his lack of candour about the nature of his offending in my view raise doubts over whether he has truly addressed his sexual attraction to children."

The judge in the Court of Appeal found his relationship with his wife to be genuine, although they only maintain relationship over the phone.

His relationship, however, was noted by the judge to have started when his wife was 15 years old and he was 23.

"Plainly, this Appellant has been sexually attracted to children and has pursued relationships with children in the past," Lord Justice Lewis determined.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told the Daily Mail: "This is yet another deeply perverse example of unelected judges trying to override elected ministers to allow a Jamaican child sex offender into the UK - after the US had rightly kicked him out. The tyranny of the judiciary continues.

"We've seen foreign murderers, rapists, drug dealers and paedophiles allowed to stay in the UK by judges using interpretations of the ECHR that defy the will of Parliament and defy common sense.

"That's why, as I explained this week, we must leave the ECHR, abolish the immigration tribunal and end the power of the courts over immigration.

"Deciding who gets to enter or remain in the UK should be in the hands of our elected parliament - not unelected judges."

A Home Office spokesman said: "We will do everything in our power to continue contesting this case. We strongly believe this individual’s presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good.

"We will not allow foreign criminals to exploit our laws.

"The Home Secretary has been clear that anyone settling in the UK must have a clean criminal record."

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