YM (Uganda) v Secretary of State for the Home Department
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE AIKENS
- SIR COLIN RIMER
- SIR STANLEY BURNTON
Areas of Law
- Immigration Law
- Human Rights Law
- Criminal Law and Procedure
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
YM, a Ugandan national, faced deportation from the UK due to multiple criminal convictions, including terrorist activity. After several legal battles concerning his right to family life under Article 8 of the ECHR, the court found the UT erred in law by not adequately considering his personal ties with Uganda. The case was remitted to the UT for re-evaluation under updated legal provisions.
Judgment
Lord Justice Aikens :
I. Synopsis
YM was born in Uganda on 24 June 1984. He came to the UK with his mother and siblings in 1991 when he was aged six. He obtained indefinite leave to remain in the UK in 2001 when he was 16. His mother and siblings have obtained British nationality, but YM has not. That is because he started to commit crimes when he was 14, his age when he was convicted of robbery. He was subsequently convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm when he was 15, of three assaults on constables, committed when he was 18, and of aggravated burglary when he was 19. For this last offence he was sentenced in Croydon Crown Court on 5 September 2003 to 3 years 6 months in a Youth Offender Institution (“YOI”). On 11 November 2004 YM was warned in a letter from the Secretary of State for the Home Department (“SSHD”) that a serious view was taken of the aggravated burglary offence and that YM was at risk of being deported if he should “come to adverse notice in the future”.
Whilst in detention in the YOI, YM began seriously to practice Islam, the religion to which he was born. On the day of his release, 18 March 2005, YM married J, a British citizen, in an Islamic marriage ceremony. They have remained married and have had 3 children, who were born, respectively, in December 2005 (IS), October 2009 (AQ) and 25 December 2011 (IL). J, who converted to Islam before marrying YM, is a trained midwife who works part-time.
After YM’s release on licence in 2005 he used to attend the Croydon Mosque and that led him to go to meetings at the house of a man called Hamid, whom YM subsequently admitted was a fanatical Islamist. These encounters resulted in YM attending two terrorist training camps in the New Forest in 2006. He was arrested in September 2006 and charged on two counts of offences under section 8(2)(a) of the Terrorism Act 2006. Broadly speaking this sub-section makes it an offence for anyone to attend a place, in the UK or elsewhere, where he has instruction or training in (for short) activities that can be used for terrorist purposes or in the use of weapons, where instruction or training is wholly or partly for purposes connected with terrorism. Under section 8(2)(a) it has to be proved that the offender knew or believed that instruction or training is being provided at the particular place “wholly or partly for purposes connected with the commission or preparation of acts or terrorism or Convention offences”. YM pleaded guilty t