A rapist who was a “danger to women” and an illegal immigrant was offered taxpayer money to leave the UK.
Joachim Cardos, 43, was offered money by the government to go to Gambia. It was part of a scheme to encourage foreign criminals to leave the UK rather than undergo expensive legal battles to stay.
The offer to Cardos followed Home Secretary Suella Braverman losing an appeal against a ruling that said he could temporarily remain.
Cardos was a drug dealer in Edinburgh when he raped a woman at knifepoint.
He was jailed for three years for supplying drugs and eight for the rape and was described by a judge as a “violent and persistent” attack that had a “devastating” impact on his victim.
The sex offender launched a human rights challenge against his automatic deportation, saying his health would suffer in Gambia.
An immigration tribunal ruled in favour of letting him temporarily remain, which justice campaigners called “an insult to his victim”.
Cardos showed no remorse for his crime. A court in Edinburgh was told there was no prisoner transfer deal in place between the UK and Gambia, meaning he’d have to service his sentence here.
In 2019, he was transferred to an immigration centre and given a deportation order, which he successfully appealed on the grounds his schizophrenia wouldn’t receive proper treatment.
Tribunal judges said there was a “real risk that he will experience genuine difficulties in the Gambia in being able to access a regular supply of his necessary medications” as well as a “real risk of at least social isolation and stigmatisation”.
The Home Office offered him £1,250 and to fund his treatment in Africa, which he declined.
Cardos arrived in the UK in 2007 on a visitor visa and remained when it expired in mid-2008.
In 2011, a 26-year-old woman went to his Edinburgh flat to buy cannabis. He pushed her into his bedroom and threatened to kill her. He then got a knife, kept threatening her and then raped her.
Passing sentence in July 2012, Judge Lord Hardie said there was a high risk of re-offending and Cardos posed a danger to women.
