Move to deport sex offender a violation of his right to family

London: A dangerous sex offender whose claim for asylum was thrown out eight years ago is still living in Britain — and costing the taxpayer of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Sarafa Salami, 48, was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to sign the sex offenders' register for life after his attack on a 21-year-old student in 2005, two years after he should have left the country.

Described on his files as a "risk to women and children", Salami was ordered to be deported on his release from prison in 2009.

But the West African remains in the United Kingdom as he has fathered two children and claims his human right to a family life would be violated if he is sent back to Togo.

The revelations make a mockery of the government's promise to deport all foreign criminals convicted of serious offences. Salami's children are understood to both be under ten and live in Liverpool — where he carried out his sex attack in 2005.

He lives in West London in an £800-a-month (Dh4,780) studio flat. He also receives £160 a month in food vouchers.

A resident said: "To know there is a sex attacker living a few hundred yards away is quite frightening."

"It beggars belief that his human rights are being looked after. What about those of his victim and the risk he poses to women who live and work nearby?"

Another neighbour told the Mail: "I am disgusted to learn he is a sex offender. He said he had spent time inside for fraud but not this. He regularly brings women back to his room. I'm sure they have no idea of his background."

Salami arrived in Britain in 2000. After his claim for asylum was thrown out in 2003, he was supposed to leave but failed to do so and re-applied after fathering two children.

His right to remain was revoked when he was convicted of the sex attack. Released from prison in 2009 he should have been deported, but was freed and remains in the United Kingdom.