A Jamaican gang member who should have been deported after a child sex offence was allowed to stay in Britain and shot a man

Rajeev Syal:

Kevin Ford, 27, was supposed to be forcibly removed but was released without his deportation being considered because officials lost his file.

He is believed to be among the 1,023 foreign criminals released from jail in the past seven years who the Home Office failed to deport. Weeks after he was freed in 2004 he shot and seriously wounded a man in a drive-by shooting outside a Sheffield nightclub. He was later jailed for 24 years.

A source close to the case said that Ford remained in Britain because of “a major administrative cock-up”. The source said: “The judge said he should be kicked out. But then there was a mix-up between the court and the immigration offices. No one knew where his file had got to. As a result, Ford was not deported.

“This is exactly the kind of cock-up that goes on behind the scenes — no one seems to know what is going on.”

Ford, a gang member in Jamaica, was jailed in February 2004 after admitting to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. The judge recommended that a deportation order should be served on his release. Instead, he was freed into the community. In August 2004, Ford opened fire on two men outside a club in Sheffield in a “cold-blooded” shooting.

Alton Chambers, 32, was left seriously ill and had up to 30 per cent of his liver removed. Another man, Christopher Gordon, 30, escaped unharmed. During the attempted murder trial at Sheffield Crown Court, the jury was told that Ford drove up to his victims and fired three shots at their vehicle.

Peter Johnson, for the prosecution, told the court: “On February 10 the case was adjourned under notice that an immigration order should be served. No such notice was served — the matter being in the hands of the Immigration Service. That is still the position, no notice has been served.”

Ford was also a murder suspect on the run from police in Jamaica. He may have killed a woman in Kingston, the island’s capital, in the late 1990s, the court was told.

The Home Office told a local newspaper in 2004 that it would investigate why Ford had been released. Yesterday, it said: “Neither the prison service nor the immigration service have any record of any recommendation for the deportation for Mr Ford.”

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