Rapist who dumped victim can stay in UK to marry

Alphonse Semo, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, threw his victim, 38, on to the tip when he “had finished with her”.

He has spent years thwarting Home Office efforts to kick him out and won his latest challenge only two hours before he was due to be flown back to Africa.

His lawyers can now apply for Semo, 53, to be given bail so he can leave an immigration detention centre to marry Bunsana Kalonji, a Congolese refugee who is now a German citizen and, as such, can live and work in Britain legally.

Opposition politicans demanded to know how Semo had managed since 1995 to thwart repeated attempts to deport him. Damian Green, the Shadow Immigration Minister, said: “Many people will be rightly angry that a convicted rapist can find ways to stay in this country when he has no right to be here.”

Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, admitted that the public would be “concerned” that Semo had managed to stay. He said: “We have a policy of deporting foreign national prisoners who have served or been sentenced to 12 months or more, so, clearly we take the decision of the court very seriously indeed.”

Semo was given indefinite leave to remain in Britain in November 2002 even though he was facing a rape charge. It is unclear whether the Home Office knew at the time that he had been accused of attacking a woman in southeast London. He was convicted a month later and given an eight-year sentence. On release in 2007, he was taken into detention.The latest twist in Semo’s series of legal battles came when Mr Justice Collins ruled “with considerable reluctance” on Monday that he must be allowed to stay in Britain to marry. The judge said that the Home Secretary would have to reconsider, after the marriage, whether to make a fresh attempt to deport Semo. Such a move would involve European Union law because of his bride-to-be’s citizenship.Once married the pair are expected to claim that Semo is legally entitled to stay in Britain as his spouse is entitled to free movement within the EU.

Home Office sources said last night that they would continue in their attempt to deport Semo and said he would not be released from Colnbrook immigration removal centre, near Heathrow.