A Kenyan asylum-seeker has been convicted of raping a mother and a schoolboy in Britain

Duncan Gardham:

Rashid Musa should not have been in Britain when he was convicted of raping a 46-year-old mother and a 16-year-old schoolboy in separate attacks.

The court heard that the Kenyan asylum-seeker should have been deported after committing an earlier sexual assault and a burglary.

The judge called the mistakes that allowed him to stay "utterly lamentable" and demanded an explanation from the Home Office.

But in the seven years since the judge made those comments, the Home Office has now admitted releasing more than 1,000 foreign criminals who should have been deported for crimes including murder, rape and paedophilia.

Musa arrived in Britain aged 16 after absconding from a flight at Heathrow. He was en route from Brazil after being deported from South America back to Kenya but claimed on arrival to be an impoverished Somali.

When that failed to work, he claimed instead to be a victim of political violence in his home city of Mombasa.

Immigration officers also believe he made a series of false benefit claims using made-up African names and netting about £430 a week.

He was refused asylum in 1993, a year after arriving, but his state-funded lawyers argued for exceptional leave to remain in order for him to "sort out his personal affairs".

In January 1995, aged 19, Musa was convicted of a serious sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl in Streatham, south London. He was jailed for 18 months but soon after his release was arrested and jailed for burglary. At that point a judge ordered his deportation on completion of his sentence.

The Home Office said it tried to find a country that would accept him, but failed and he was released instead.

Four months later, in February 1998, Musa raped a 46-year-old woman at knifepoint in a lavatory. The following day, again armed with a knife, he raped a boy in the lavatory of a train.

The woman later suffered a nervous breakdown and tried to commit suicide.

The schoolboy said after the attack: "No human being alive should be subjected to something like I was. It was terrifying and humiliating."

Psychiatrists said Musa had an untreatable personality disorder. Doctors at Broadmoor secure hospital said he did not regard his crimes as serious and received a "buzz" from hearing his victims scream.

Sentencing Musa to five life sentences, Judge David Radford said he was an "evil and dangerous man".

He called the Home Office failings "utterly lamentable" and asked for an explanation.

Mark Baker, a Home Office official, admitted that "no efforts were made to trace" Musa in order to execute the deportation order.

He added: "The only reason I can put forward is lack of resources."

Musa's case echoes that of Indrit Krasniqi, 18, one of the men who kidnapped and murdered schoolgirl Mary-Ann Leneghan in Reading.

He had out-stayed his permission to be in this country despite being under a community sentence.

Krasniqi claimed to be a 13-year-old Kosovan national when he arrived in Britain and was housed in children's homes in south London.

He was granted exceptional leave to remain until his 18th birthday because he was a minor but his leave had expired by the time of Mary-Ann's murder in May last year.

At the time Krasniqi was under a community service order for driving without insurance and obstructing a policeman that he had been given in January 2005.

He had also been given a referral order from Richmond youth court in June 2004 for two common assaults.

And in August 2003 he had been warned for possessing cannabis.

While he awaited trial in the Mary-Ann case, the Home Office finally served deportation papers on him, which will be carried out once he has completed his life sentence.

Mary-Ann and her friend were abducted in Reading in the early hours of May 7 last year.

They were tortured and raped before being driven to a park where Mary-Ann was butchered and her friend shot. But the older girl survived to give evidence against her attackers.

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