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A migrant gang member convicted of manslaughter after the murder of an 18-year-old was deported because of European Union rules, it has emerged.
Abdul Hafidah, 18, was murdered in front of rush hour commuters in Manchester in May 2016. The teenager, a childhood friend of Manchester bomber Salman Abedi, was run over by a car and then stabbed in the neck.
Among the 10 men convicted of the killing was William George, 28, a semi-professional footballer.
George, a Belgian who moved to Britain with his parents at the age of eight, was jailed for 12 years for manslaughter for his part in the attack. In 2018 he was served deportation papers, which said he was a “real risk” of re-offending.
Home Office officials have now lost a six-year legal battle to remove George from the UK, despite his links to Manchester’s notorious AO gang.
Under the Brussels directives, which were in place until Brexit, EU nationals who had lived in Britain for an extended period could not be deported “on serious public security grounds”.
Court papers published this week showed judges had concluded that George, who committed his criminal offense before the UK left the EU, did not meet the strict criteria for removal.
Dismissing an appeal by the Home Office against an earlier immigration court decision to quash his deportation, the Court of Appeal ruled that the threshold had not been met.
Lord Justice Nicholas Underhill said George had “the highest level of protection from removal” as a European Economic Area (EEA) national and there was “no express misdirection of law”.
Hafidah, a member of the Rusholme Crips gang, was hunted down after straying into combat territory in the Moss Side area of Manchester.
George played a vital role, his sentencing hearing was told, by confronting Hafidah and allowing others to come forward. The attackers beat the teenager, threw a hammer at him and hit him with a car, causing him to die from knife wounds to the neck.
Seven were convicted of murder and jailed for life. Three others, including George, were sentenced to manslaughter.
Dismissing a Home Office deportation bid in 2023, an immigration tribunal ruled that George had expressed remorse and “had no intention of engaging in any future criminal offences”.
Judge Bruce, sitting in Manchester, said: “William George was a promising footballer. He moved away almost two years before this offence, having secured a semi-professional contract at Morecambe FC and a scholarship to Lancaster College.
“He had a GSCE, went straight from school up to Morecambe, had no criminal convictions and had no part-time job in a restaurant. He also worked coaching children’s football.
“By all accounts, he had a good relationship with his parents, who gave him a stable and supportive home. That was his life until that evening in May 2016. His participation in the killing of Mr. Hafidah changed everything.
“He has spent almost all of the last seven years in prison, and has only recently been released on licence. He now lives in a hostel far from his parents. He has no job and is not currently in education.
“He has received a very deep education about the dangers of violence. When he says he has no intention of being involved in any future criminal convictions, I believe him.”
The Home Office contested the decision at the Court of Appeal, where three judges ruled that the immigration tribunal had acted lawfully.
Lord Justice Underhill concluded: “Nothing in our decision means that we take anything but the most serious view of Mr George’s conduct. But he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for that behavior.
“The question in this case is whether, in addition to that punishment, he should be deported to Belgium, where he has not lived since he was eight years old. The rule under the regulations is, therefore, that this does not depend on the seriousness of the offense but on whether it poses a serious enough risk to public safety in the future.
“After carefully weighing all the evidence, the judge found no. I have to say that I am convinced by his reasoning, but in any case there is no legal error in it.”
After Brexit, the Government no longer follows EEA regulations. Non-British criminals are liable to deportation if they are given a prison term of 12 months or more.
GCE regulations, which the UK adopted from an EU directive from 2004, previously allowed the killer of principal Philip Lawrence to remain in the UK.
Learco Chindamo was 15 when he beat Mr Lawrence to death outside his school in north London in 1995. In 2007, Chindamo, an Italian national, won an appeal against deportation on the grounds that he was from an EU country and already live in the UK. for 10 years by 1995.
