(MENAFN- The Conversation) A convicted sex offender has been deported from Britain to Ethiopia after being accidentally released from prison. Following a national manhunt, home secretary Shabana Mahmood confirmed that Hadush Kebatu – an asylum seeker who came to the UK without authorisation on a small boat – would be returned to his home country.

Kebatu was convicted in September of sexual offences against a woman and 14-year-old girl and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. Mahmood announced she had“pulled every lever” to ensure his deportation. But shouldn't it be easy for the government to deport someone who has committed a crime such as this?

Under UK law, the home secretary has a duty to pursue removal of foreign national offenders (FNOs). This includes“automatic” deportation of any foreign nationals who are sentenced to 12 months or more imprisonment. They also have discretion to deport a foreign national (whether or not they have committed an offence) if they believe it “is conducive to the public good”.

But for several reasons, the UK has struggled to do this. In 2006, it was revealed that some 1,013 foreign national prisoners had been released without the Home Office considering deportation. This was a scandal that led to the resignation of then home secretary Charles Clarke.

Currently, the UK deports approximately 5,000 FNOs per year. There are currently 10,700 FNOs held in UK prisons, around 12% of the total prison population.

FNOs are considered for deportation on completion of their sentence or, increasingly (given the pressure on space in prisons), before they have served their full sentence. This may be under early release schemes or prisoner transfer arrangements with their home country.

In practice, deportations are often complicated by procedural issues. Removal can be prevented by lack of travel documents, and the Home Office may have to seek an emergency travel document from an individual's embassy before they can be removed – a process which can be frustrated if the offender or their embassy refuses to cooperate or are slow in doing so.

Deportation arrangements

To address these issues, the UK now has 110 prisoner transfer agreements with other countries – most recently, Albania and the Philippines. Through these arrangements, offenders can partially serve their sentence in the UK, and then be transferred to serve the remainder of their sentence in their home country.

There are two other schemes under which FNOs may be deported before serving their full sentences: early removal, and facilitated return schemes. Under these schemes, they do not serve the rest of their sentence in their home country.

Recent changes to the early removal scheme mean FNOs have to serve only 30% of their sentence (rather than 50%) before removal. The home secretary has indicated plans to reduce this to 0%, so offenders can be targeted for deportation as soon as they are sentenced.

The facilitated return scheme encourages voluntary removal. It“sweetens the deal” by providing the offender up to £1,500 to help them resettle in their home country, if they agree to withdraw any outstanding appeals or applications to stay in the UK.

There has been some criticism of the fact that Kebatu was given £500 after threatening to disrupt his deportation. Although his was a forced return, not part of voluntary removal, the Home Office argued this is still a smaller payment than would have been required to detain him and put him on a different flight.

In many cases, lack of coordination and administrative errors in the Home Office are the root cause of failed removals. Complications around booking flights, arranging escorts and other practicalities have all been found to prevent deportations.

Human rights concerns

Offenders may also appeal their deportations by arguing that removal would breach their right to private and family life, under article 8 of the European convention on human rights.

This is sometimes misreported as offering FNOs very broad protection against removal. For example, the wrongly reported case of an Albanian who resisted removal on the basis his son disliked foreign chicken nuggets, or Theresa May's assertion that a foreign offender was able to stay in the UK because he had a pet cat. These attention-grabbing headlines often misrepresent the content of decisions and mischaracterise the role of human rights.

Read more: How the UK could reform the European convention on human rights

In fact, the UK has a very strict interpretation of article 8, and decision-makers must balance the right against aims such as controlling immigration and public safety.

UK rules state that the public interest in removing foreign offenders will almost always outweigh any article 8 rights, except in the most exceptional cases. This may be, for example, if the person has lived in the UK for almost their whole life and would have real difficulty integrating in the country they would be removed to, or if removal would be“unduly harsh” on their (UK citizen) child or long-term partner. FNOs sentenced to four or more years in prison must show“very compelling circumstances over and above” these exceptions.

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has said the UK government will work to make it easier to deport foreign national offenders. Andy Rain/EPA-EFE

Foreign nationals may also argue that their life will be at risk, that they will suffer inhuman or degrading treatment, unlawful detention, or an unfair trial on return to their home country.

In practice, this means the UK government cannot deport someone if there is a high risk they would face irreparable harm including persecution, torture, ill-treatment or other serious human rights violations. In some cases, this has been relied on to prevent deportation where there was a risk of abduction and torture at the hands of police, or to face trial where evidence obtained by torture would be used.

However, this is only applicable where there is real risk of very serious harm and will not apply in all, or even most, cases. British courts have ruled it is possible to return people even to countries in conflict, if there is a safe place in the country they could move to.

The most recent data shows that between 2008 and 2021, 11% of FNO appeals against deportation succeeded on human rights grounds. This is 3%-4% of the approximately 60,000 FNOs removed from the UK during this period.

Despite the exceptional nature of these human rights protections, the challenges they are perceived to pose to a state's ability to control its borders mean they attract a disproportionate amount of political attention. In May this year, nine European states took the unprecedented step of issuing a letter to the European Court of Human Rights, calling for greater state powers in removing foreign criminals.

The UK justice secretary has followed suit, stating that the UK will pursue reform of the European convention.

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