Seven of London’s most dangerous gang members have been thrown out of the country in a new purge by the Met and border guards.
One was a Trinidadian citizen suspected of involvement in firearms and other violent offences who was regarded as one of London’s “highest harm gang members”.
He intimidated his victims so much that many were scared to testify in court against him. The man claimed that he should be allowed to stay in the capital because of “strong” family ties.
But the Home Office defeated his legal challenge and sent him home to the Caribbean as an illegal overstayer.
The other six were also regarded by police as “high harm gang members and prolific offenders” and sent home for similar immigration breaches.
The disclosure came in a new Home Office report today on the progress of the Government’s anti-gang strategy that was unveiled last year in the wake of the summer riots in London and other cities.
In the document, Home Secretary Theresa May says that ministers can be “proud of good progress in a range of areas” including the introduction of new offences of threatening with a knife in a public place or school and the creation of a network of support workers for girls vulnerable to gang-related sexual violence.
She also hails the introduction of gang injunctions for under-18s, which impose conditions on gang members to prevent violence, and reveals that 74 London gang members have been taken “off the streets” and “put into education, training or employment” under a rehabilitation programme run by JobCentre Plus.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith was today due to tell the Institute of Education that London rioters must not be left to fall back into gang culture on their release from jail, saying it was important to “break the destructive cycle of gang life”.
