One murder is enough

Appeal judges overturn rulings that wife-killer is no danger to the UK

The home secretary has won an appeal against a ruling by a tribunal judge that an asylum seeker should be allowed to remain in the UK because he had murdered only one person.

The killer, a 54-year-old Turkish national identified only as KD, arrived on a lorry in 2001 and claimed asylum on the basis of his Kurdish ethnic origin and his Alevi Muslim faith, adding that he was a supporter of groups that are banned in Turkey and elsewhere.

He was refused asylum and in 2004 his appeal was dismissed on the ground that his claims were fraudulent. He and his wife remained in the UK unlawfully. In December 2005, he stabbed her multiple times in a fit of jealous rage. She was 23.

KD was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 12 years. He was released on licence in 2018 and served with a deportation order the following year. His appeal was heard in November 2022 by Judge C Scott, sitting in the First-tier Tribunal. The judge allowed KD’s appeal on asylum grounds.

The Upper Tribunal, which had dismissed the home secretary’s appeal

Under the Refugee Convention, asylum seekers are protected from being returned to countries where their lives or freedoms are at risk. But there is an exception for anyone who has been convicted of a “particularly serious crime” and “constitutes a danger to the community”.

Recent legislation creates a rebuttable presumption that a person convicted of such a crime is a danger to the United Kingdom community. What the First-tier Tribunal had to decide was whether KD had managed to rebut that presumption.

This is what the tribunal judge said:

I have carefully weighed up the evidence in the round, in reaching a conclusion as to whether the appellant has rebutted the presumption as to whether he constitutes a danger to the community of the United Kingdom.

I find that he has rebutted the presumption, taking account of the following:

a) The appellant has a conviction for one offence. Whilst there is no doubt that murder is an extremely serious offence, he has no other history of offending.

b) The appellant was released from prison in August 2018, a period of over four years as of the date of hearing. Since release, he has not reoffended and is fully engaging with the probation service. He is assessed by the probation service as presenting a low risk of committing a further offence.

c) The appellant undertook rehabilitative courses whilst in prison to address his offending. Further, since his release, he attends monthly supervision sessions with his probation officer. Further, the appellant has learned techniques so as to control his emotions.

d) Whilst the Parole Board assessed the appellant as posing a medium–high risk of serious harm to intimate partners, this has been downgraded by the probation service as a risk of medium. Further, this assessment was based on his offending behaviour.

Giving judgment in the Court of Appeal yesterday, Lord Justice Peter Jackson said:

I have concluded that this decision of the First-tier Tribunal on this issue was not one that a reasonable decision-maker could have come to. In accepting that KD had proved that he was not a danger to the community, it demonstrably lost sight of a number of matters.

The assessment of whether a person who has committed a particularly serious crime constitutes a danger to the community involves consideration of the nature of the crime, the likelihood of further serious offending and the level of harm that might result.

The passage cited above shows that the First-tier Tribunal acknowledged the seriousness of KD’s offence but it immediately diluted that with statements that it was a single offence.

Similarly it gave no adequate consideration to the fact that the foreseeable consequences of any reoffending were extremely serious, even if they were less than fatal.

Most fundamentally, even after all remedial efforts on the part of KD and those seeking to help him, there was still a real risk of repetition.

Lords Justices Arnold and Dove agreed with Jackson that the home secretary’s appeal should be allowed. The First-tier Tribunal judge had made other errors that the Upper Tribunal failed to correct in a judgment delivered by Upper Tribunal Judge Perkins in 2024, almost 12 months after the hearing.

One issue remained. The First-tier Tribunal had failed to decide KD’s claim that he would be at risk on his return to Turkey for killing his wife — presumably from her family. “It is uncomfortable,” said Jackson, “that a foreign criminal subject to deportation should be able to claim human rights protection because of an alleged blood feud resulting from his crime, but the appeal must be decided in accordance with principle.”

It was “unfortunate”, Jackson added, that the tribunal judge had not made comprehensive findings. But the case should now go back to the Upper Tribunal to decide whether arrangements could be made for KD’s safe return through internal relocation in Turkey.