Reform UK and Conservative MPs have renewed demands for sweeping changes to human rights legislation after a migrant convicted of raping a sleeping woman won the right to stay in Britain.
An immigration tribunal heard that Hendrix Ekwen, 34, took nine years to accept responsibility for the “appalling” attack on a woman who was drunk, unconscious and “vulnerable” at the time.
The tribunal was told that Ekwen had initially refused to acknowledge his guilt because of his “sexual entitlement” and had attempted to shift responsibility for the rape onto the victim.
Despite that history, he has now succeeded in an immigration appeal allowing him to remain in the UK after bringing a claim linked to human rights protections.
The judge accepted that Ekwen could stay in Britain after he argued that he had “learned his lesson”.
In the ruling, the judge said it was “not necessary for me to determine the appeal under Article 8” of the European Convention on Human Rights, adding that the decision was made under the “Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2016” — the same framework cited by Home Office ministers when they told Ekwen they were preparing to deport him.
Nevertheless, the appeal was allowed on “human rights grounds”, securing Ekwen permission to remain in the UK.
MPs from both the Conservative Party and Reform UK seized on the case as evidence, they said, that Britain must rewrite its human rights laws and withdraw from some international agreements.
The Tories’ Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said: ‘It is utterly repulsive this rapist is allowed to stay in the UK.
‘He, and all other foreign criminals, should be deported.
‘A whole industry of open-border activists and lawyers has sprung up to frustrate the ability to remove such criminals – this needs to be torn down.
‘The Conservative Party has a plan to end this so we can deport all foreign criminals.
The Home Office failed in its bid to have Hendrix Ekwen deported following his conviction for raping a sleeping woman in an ‘appalling’ attack
‘We will leave the ECHR and any other obligation that gets in the way, as well as abolishing the immigration tribunal meaning only the Government will decide who can and cannot stay.’
Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman, said: ‘A Reform government will deport this savage rapist.
‘We will leave the ECHR and all foreign treaties that allow activist lawyers and judges to keep monsters like Hendrix in Britain, endangering British women and girls.’
Ekwen, an Italian national, came to the UK in 2009, when he was already 18, to join his mother and siblings in the North East of England.
Between 2012 and 2014, he was involved in five domestic abuse incidents and in 2015 he received a conditional discharge for possession of cannabis.
In 2020, he made an application under the European Union Settlement Scheme which would allow him to stay in Britain.
However, later that year he was found guilty at Newcastle Crown Court of one count of rape, which took place in 2017, and he was jailed for eight years.
At the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Rebecca Pickering described the attack as ‘appalling’, adding: ‘In 2017 [Ekwen] raped the victim.
‘[Ekwen] and the victim did not know one another, but were out with mutual friends on the night in question. Drinking was involved.
‘[Ekwen] and his friend at some point in the evening moved to the victim’s home. The victim had consensual sexual intercourse with [Ekwen’s] friend.
‘The victim then fell asleep. The victim was awoken by someone having sexual intercourse with her whilst lying behind her.
‘She expected it to be [Ekwen’s] friend when in fact it was [Ekwen]. As soon as she realised she demanded [Ekwen] and his friend to get out of her home and reported this to the police.’
Even after being found guilty at his trial in 2020, the rapist ‘maintained his innocence’ and ‘tried to place responsibility of the rape with the victim’.
Judge Pickering called this ‘deeply troubling’ but added that he has come to accept responsibility through ‘a slow and gradual process’.
Ekwen initially appealed against his deportation at the First-tier Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber.
He said that he had ‘learned his lesson’ – however, he also claimed his involvement in the offence was ‘inadvertent’ and said that he had just ‘misinterpreted signals from the victim’.
After losing the first-tier hearing, he appealed at the Upper Tribunal and ‘explained that he now understands that his actions constituted rape’.
Judge Pickering said that since 2017 there has been a ‘substantial period during which reflection, maturation and personal development may occur’.
She has now allowed him to stay because Ekwen saying he didn’t want to be known as ‘that kind of person’ was evidence of his ‘genuine shame’.
She said in her ruling last month: ‘[Ekwen’s] conviction for rape is an exceptionally serious matter. I have no hesitation in describing the offending as appalling.
‘The victim was vulnerable by reason of intoxication and because she was asleep…The impact upon the victim was profound.’
But she added that she didn’t believe Ekwen posed a sufficiently serious threat to the public to justify his deportation.
