Polish drug dealer avoids deportation because he ‘doesn't speak the language'
A convicted Polish drug dealer has avoided being deported because he claims he cannot speak Polish.
Nikodem Lopata, who came to Britain at the age of four, was arrested when he was 16 years old for dealing cocaine.
He was convicted of cannabis offences aged 18, and three months after that he was caught with more than £1,000 of crack cocaine and heroin while carrying a 'Rambo-style' knife.
The Polish national was sentenced to four and a half years in prison in a Young Offenders' Institution and was told by the Home Office that he would be sent back to the country of his birth.
However, after being released, Lopata appealed the decision under article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights saying that it would breach his right to a family life.
He claimed that he could not speak Polish and had no close family or friends living in Poland anymore, which would mean it would be very difficult for him to reintegrate into Polish society.
Despite his 'unenviable list of convictions', judges found in his favour, rejecting the Home Office's argument that he should be forced to leave the UK.
The case, disclosed in court papers, is the latest example exposed by The Telegraph where migrants or convicted foreign criminals have used human rights laws to remain in the UK or halt their deportations.
They include an Albanian criminal who avoided deportation after claiming his son had an aversion to foreign chicken nuggets, and a Pakistani paedophile who was jailed for child sex offences but escaped removal from the UK as it would be 'unduly harsh' on his own children.
The Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber in Manchester was told that Lopata – now 22 and who settled in Crewe, Cheshire – came to Britain from Poland in 2006.
Summing up the case, Judge Greg Ó Ceallaigh noted: '[He] has an unenviable list of convictions given his young age.'
In 2019, when 16, he got a community order for supplying cocaine, followed in 2021 by a fine and six points on his licence for possession of cannabis and motoring offences. A year later, he was convicted of possessing a knife, class A drugs and dangerous driving.
Stopped by police, he was searched and found with 80 wraps of heroin and crack cocaine, a further seven grams of heroin, a small bag of cannabis, a large knife described by police as 'Rambo-style' and £673 in cash. The drugs were worth up to £1,340.
After being threatened with deportation following his sentencing to 54 months custody, a lower tier tribunal upheld his human rights appeal on the basis that he had spent his 'formative years' in the UK and had built friendships outside of his family.
'It was accepted that [he] would have little physical family support in Poland given that his mother and uncles are resident in the UK, and he do[es] not appear to have had any contact with his father,' the court was told.
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, appealed the ruling, arguing there needed to be 'very compelling circumstances' not to deport foreign criminals sentenced to four years in prison.
The Home Office rejected claims that there would be 'very significant obstacles' to his reintegration into Poland and that he did not speak Polish, an argument which it said was 'not adequately reasoned'.
Andrew Mullen, for the Home Office, described the finding that Mr Lopata did not speak Polish to be 'very odd' and said it was difficult to imagine a 'much more serious offence' than one involving Class A drugs.
However, the Upper Tribunal judges ruled that Judge Ali had carried out a 'detailed analysis' of Lopata's case.
'In our view, the conclusion of the [first tier tribunal] that Mr Lopata did not speak Polish was one properly open to him on the facts. The fact that he visited Poland for a week-long holiday when he was nine does not further the Secretary of State's case in this regard,' they said.
'The [first tier tribunal's] conclusion in substance was that a person who had lived in the United Kingdom since the age of four, who does not speak Polish and would have little or no family support in Poland, would face very significant obstacles to reintegration into Poland. In our view this is a conclusion that was adequately reasoned.'
Upholding the original decision, Judge Ó Ceallaigh ruled that Lopata's appeal against the Secretary of State's decision to refuse his human rights claim was allowed.
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