Home Secretary is barred from deporting Jamaican woman who tortured mentally ill man after judge rules social workers turned her into a criminal

  • Violent immigrant abducted and tortured vulnerable man in 17-hour ordeal
  • Woman, who came to Britain from Jamaica in 1994, was imprisoned in 2009
  • After her release, Theresa May tried to have the woman sent back to Jamaica
  • But a tribunal overruled her, citing 'the state's failure to look after her'
  • Woman had been put in care after suffering catalogue of rapes and beatings
  • Social workers from Enfield and Haringey councils failed to protect her

By Harriet Arkell

Published: | Updated:

A violent Jamaican woman who abducted a vulnerable man before torturing him for 17 hours will not be deported from Britain because a judge said social workers had failed her.

The woman, known as Ms K, was sent to jail for five years for blackmail, false imprisonment and ABH after the 2009 attack - related to a drugs dispute - which left the mentally ill man fearing for his life after he was tied up.

Upon her release from prison, Home Secretary Theresa May wanted to send the woman back to Jamaica, but lost after it was decided that failures by London social workers had turned the woman into a violent criminal.

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Home Secretary: Theresa May wanted to deport the violent Jamaican immigrant but lost her appeal

Home Secretary: Theresa May wanted to deport the violent Jamaican immigrant but lost her appeal

The woman was born in Jamaica and stayed there after her mother moved to Britain in 1992, suffering beatings at the hands of her Jamaican grandmother and being raped at the age of eight.

In 1994, she was sent to London to join her mother and stepfather but was raped again by her stepfather's brother and a friend of the family.

Ms K was then put into care and given a good foster family, but a mistake in paperwork meant that she was removed from there and transferred to a children's home. There she suffered yet more beatings and was sexually abused.

After social workers let her mother remove her from care, Enfield social services were told she was being beaten by her mother in 2006.  Despite them hearing that the young woman was suicidal as a result, they did nothing, it was reported today.

The family moved to the London borough of Haringey, where social workers failed to protect both Baby P and Victoria Climbie, but again social services failed to help, despite an A&E doctor warning Ms K was 'slipping through the net', the Sun reported.

The woman was arrested in October 2009 after the torture of the vulnerable man.

Social workers at Haringey Council, pictured, were blamed for letting the woman 'slip through the net'

Social workers at Haringey Council, pictured, were blamed for letting the woman 'slip through the net'


After her sentence finished, a tribunal overruled the Home Secretary's wish to send her back to Jamaica, saying: 'The state's failure to look after her has greatly contributed to her involvement in crime and her mental illness.'

An appeal by Mrs May failed when Judge Ken Craig backed the tribunal's decision, citing a list of failures by North London councils Enfield and Haringey and saying that sending the woman back to Jamaica would be 'unconscionable'.

Spokesmen for Haringey and Enfield Councils declined to comment today.



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