LAST FRIDAY Dahir Ibrahim was convicted of three charges of rape at knifepoint. The police officers in charge of the case believe that this was only a small proportion of the crimes that he has committed.
While in custody, Ibrahim refused to have any contact with female police officers. As with most serial rapists, his crimes were motivated by a hatred of women. The police described him as “truly evil”. It is hard to quarrel with that description. He was sentenced to ten years in prison: not a severe sentence.
The judge also recommended that he should be deported at the end of his sentence. This ought to make every woman in the United Kingdom feel slightly happier. But there was a problem.
Ibrahim is a Somali asylum-seeker. Chaotic conditions currently prevail in Somalia and there is no guarantee that matters will improve during the rapist’s time in prison. If Somalia is still considered to be too dangerous, it may not be possible to deport him. His human rights could be in danger.
This is where elements of our legal system have not just lost contact with common sense, but with sanity. Ibrahim is here as a refugee. We took him in. So he owed Britain a debt of gratitude. He repaid with hatred and rape. In that case, he can have no further claim on our charity. His circumstances back in Somalia may not be to his liking. Too bad. He should have thought of that before embarking on his career as a serial rapist.
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The whole affair reminds one of an old joke: the man who murdered his parents and then asked for mercy because he was an orphan. That story might be thought stale enough to have grown green mould, but, with the Human Rights Act, who knows?
We are losing sight of the primary purpose of our laws: to protect British subjects. Indeed, that protection might be regarded as a human right. But the current legal cant about human rights has nothing to do with the defence of the law-abiding citizen. As John Reid is now discovering daily, human rights legislation obstructs that defence even during a terrorist emergency.
In the Ibrahim case, the rapist’s human rights may take precedence over those of his potential victims. That, too, would be truly evil. He may not be safe in Somalia. We are not safe as long as he is at liberty here.