Read the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruling on Chindamo in full

The Home Secretary believes that Philip Lawrence’s killer poses a “continuing risk to the public”, according to papers that the courts tried to prevent being published.

Learco Chindamo, now 26, has been rated as the highest level of risk and needs to be barred from parts of the country, the papers say.

But the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal rejected the Government’s argument in a ruling that makes clear it will be almost impossible to deport a serious criminal from an EU state if they have lived in Britain for more than five years.

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The Government should never have suggested to Mrs Lawrence that Chindamo could be deported at the end of his sentence

Alice Miles

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The Times obtained a copy of the tribunal’s judgment after a day in which Whitehall and the courts refused to release it. Officials considered preventing its publication with a legal order because the deportation hearing had been in private. But they withdrew the threat after being told that it had been posted mistakenly on the tribunal’s website.

The Judicial Communications Office issued a summary of the full judgment last night. A spokesman said: “The tribunal judiciary were dismayed to see that The Times chose to put the full judgment on its website, and will be considering that issue tomorrow [Wednesday].”

The judgment reveals that Home Office officials gave warning in documents sent to the tribunal that Chindamo “overreacted” to situations on several occasions, and predicted it would be difficult to find him somewhere to live on release.

“It was considered that he posed a continuing risk to the public and that his offences were so serious that he represents a genuine and present and sufficiently serious threat to the public in principle as to justify his deportation,” the letter said. It added that while it was unlikely that Chindamo would reoffend, he had been ranked as high-risk under the multi-agency public protection arrangements. But this ranking, under which he would be monitored by police,

probation and other agencies, was largely because of the media interest he would receive on his release and the danger of a “backlash”.

“He would need to be excluded from certain parts of the country, community integration would be a problem on release and he might suffer a backlash,” the letter added. It said that Chindamo’s notoriety might make him feel excluded from society and “there was a significant risk that his previous disregard for authority and the law might resurface and result in him coming to adverse attention.

“As a consequence it was considered that he posed a continuing risk to the public and that his offences were so serious that he represented a genuine and present and sufficiently serious threat to the public in principle such as to justify his deportation”.

Ministers are to appeal against the tribunal’s ruling, which was based largely on a new EU law that protects its citizens from being expelled from other member states except in certain extreme circumstances. Chindamo’s defence team said there was no evidence that their client was a serious and present threat, noting that reports on him had been “very positive” and the parole board had been “very impressed”.

Lawyers suggested last night that the Home Office’s appeal had little chance and preparations were expected to continue towards Chindamo’s eventual release. Nigel Leskin, Chindamo’s solicitor, said: “I do not see they have any grounds of appeal because it can only be on a point of law and there is no legal issue here I can see because it is a matter of facts.”

Chindamo, who was born in Italy, is eligible for parole in January and is likely to be moved from Ashwell closed prison in Rutland to an open jail within the next few months.

Mr Lawrence, a headmaster, was stabbed to death outside St George’s Roman Catholic School in Maida Vale, West London, in December 1995, while trying to protect a 13-year-old pupil from a gang of 12 youths led by Chindamo.

His widow, Frances, said she had always been given the impression that the killer would be deported at the end of his sentence. Speaking on the Radio 4 Today programme, she said: “In Article 2 of the Human Rights Act my husband had the right to life. Chindamo destroyed that right yet he has used the legal process to enable him to live as described in Article 8. The Act works in his best interest. It is ill-equipped to work for people in my situation. That seems to me a major conundrum.”

Yesterday David Cameron, the Conservative leader, called for the Human Rights Act to be abolished to be replaced with a British Bill of Rights, which would clearly set out rights and responsibilities. Speaking on BBC West Midlands, he accused the Government of being “blind” about the Act’s failings, adding that it would be common sense to scrap it altogether.

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