Male nurse who groped woman escapes deportation

London: A foreign nurse who sexually assaulted a pregnant patient has avoided deportation because of his ‘right to family life' despite claims his wife and children have already returned to India.

Milind Sanade was jailed for 12 months after he groped a vulnerable 21-year-old he was examining for signs of breast cancer.

Following his release from prison, Indian national Sanade, 36, should have been deported.

But he appealed on the grounds of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, after fathering two children in England. He was granted leave to stay because his family life deserved ‘respect'.

But on Friday night neighbours at his terraced house in Chelmsford, Essex, said his wife, Veni, had already returned to India.

One said: "Sanade is always coming and going and we never really see much of him.

"I have heard that his wife has left him and taken the kids to India with her."

Another neighbour suggested his wife might not have left him permanently but was just on an ‘extended holiday'. In his ruling, Justice Blake, the president of the Upper Immigration Tribunal, said Sanade's deportation was "not necessary in the public interest".

But MPs said this casts doubt on Home Secretary Theresa May's pledge to stop 400 foreigners a year abusing Article 8 by claiming they have a wife, girlfriend or child in Britain.

Insult to injury

They say immigration judges have launched a pre-emptory strike against the plan, threatening a row between Parliament and the judiciary.

MP Dominic Raab said: "This is a damning indictment of Labour's UK Borders Act 2007, which allows serious criminals to defeat deportation on broad claims to family and social ties.

"But, it adds insult to injury that the president of the Upper Immigration Tribunal is engaged in a political attack on the Government for trying to reform the current shambles."

Sanade, who was also cautioned for assaulting an 87-year-old man when he worked in a care home, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the pregnant patient at a hospital in Harlow, Essex, in February 2010.

In an effort to hide his crime, he made entries in his victim's medical file so that if she complained she would be viewed as emotionally unstable.

At the time of the assault, his wife, who is also a nurse, was pregnant with their second child. Sanade was ordered to sign the sex offenders' register for ten years, banned from working in care and struck off the nurses' register.

Under the UK Borders Act of 2007, foreign criminals jailed for a year or more must be deported unless there are ‘exceptional' circumstances whereby the right to family life would be violated.