Five times judges ordered this man should be deported - 25 years later he's still here
Alick Kapikanya was first warned he was at risk of being sent back to his native Zambia in February 1992 after he was convicted of attempted fraud. In March 2000, after serving a prison sentence for theft, he lost an appeal against deportation, but no order to remove him from the country was ever made.
In February 2010, following a conviction for dishonesty, a judge once again ruled Kapikanya must be deported. He appealed against that ruling and was granted leave to remain.
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But now, after serving a six-year prison sentence for stealing £3.5m in an elaborate mortgage scam, a judge has ruled Kapikanya must be finally deported.
It comes after the now 57-year-old was jailed for six years at Manchester Crown Court in 2014 after he led a gang of con artists that stole the identities of elderly people across Greater Manchester and the north west.
The court heard the gang secretly seized ownership of their houses and then repeatedly re-mortgaged them. Horrified homeowners had to fight to reclaim legal ownership of their own houses whilst Kapikanya, then of Chatsworth Road, Stretford, travelled everywhere in chauffeur-driven limousines, stayed in luxury West End hotels and gambled away £170,000 in a single night.
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Four victims of the scam lived in neighbouring houses at Walkden Road, Worsley. The gang also targeted a house in Broad Lane, Hale, Cheshire, the home of a retired farmer at Malpas, Cheshire and three properties owned by a couple in Sleaford, Lincolnshire.
It was the eleventh time Kapikanya had been convicted of a crime in this country. Following his release from prison he again appealed against an order to deport him.
The Appeal Court heard he came to the UK in April 1983, aged 14, to be adopted. The adoption fell through and, the court heard, Kapikanya was 'assimilated into a religious cult'.
Now married with a 20-year-old son, at an earlier appeal hearing Kapikanya argued he was in remission from stomach cancer and was suffering from anxiety. He was described as being 'socially and culturally integrated into the United Kingdom' with 'no familial or social links with Zambia'.
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Barrister Zane Malik KC argued deportation would be 'unduly harsh' on Kapikanya's son. Mr Malik added 'over and above' that the fact Kapikanya has lived in the UK for 42 years also constituted 'very compelling circumstances'.
Appeal Court judges Lord Justice Bean, Lord Justice Peter Jackson and Lord Justice Baker rejected the appeal and ordered Kapikanya be deported.
They wrote: "[Kapikanya] has been the subject of five decisions that he should be deported over a period of a quarter of a century. The system of appeals and orders for reconsideration has served him well in enabling him to remain in the UK throughout that period.
"But in my view the Secretary of State should now, at last, be allowed to put the November 2016 deportation order into effect."
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