Pakistani man who was convicted of drug dealing has been allowed to stay in the UK because of a shocking reason

A Pakistani man who was convicted of drug dealing has been allowed to stay in the UK because a judge ruled that sending him back to his home country would be too hard on his son.

The man, Muhammad Asif Karim, is 43 years old and has lived in the UK for 26 years. Over the years, he was convicted seven times for 21 different crimes, including selling dangerous drugs like heroin and cocaine. He served four years in prison for those offences. After his release, the UK Home Office decided he should be deported.

However, Karim appealed that decision in an immigration court, saying that he needed to stay in the UK for the sake of his child. The judge agreed, pointing to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to family life.

Even though the boy mostly lives with his white British mother, the court accepted that the father’s role in teaching the boy about Islam, Pakistani culture, and his own personal experiences was an important part of the child’s identity.

This decision has upset many people because it’s not the first time that foreign criminals have avoided deportation by using the family life argument in court. The Home Office argued that the father’s influence was not clearly proven and lacked evidence from professionals like social workers or psychologists. But the tribunal still ruled in Karim’s favour.

The judge noted that although Karim had committed many crimes in the past, he had not broken the law in over ten years and had followed all the rules given to him by probation officers and immigration authorities.

They also said that he had suffered serious mental health problems and had been a victim of violence and crime himself, which may have influenced his earlier actions. Another important detail was that the Home Office had waited over ten years to begin the deportation process, which the court viewed as a significant delay.

In response to cases like this, the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has suggested new rules to limit judges’ power to block deportations using the “right to family life” argument.

She’s pushing for clearer, more practical rules what she calls “common sense” rules—to guide how judges apply Article 8. Leaders from several European countries have also called on judges to be stricter, especially when it comes to removing foreign criminals who pose a threat to public safety.