Tribunal rules against deporting jailed Brighton drug dealer

A drug dealer from Brighton has overturned plans to deport him to Jamaica after being released from prison.

Richard Blackwood, 36, won a reprieve after he cited his family’s human rights in a case heard in the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber.

Blackwood, formerly of Saunders Park View, Hollingdean, was jailed for five years in December 2007 for selling cocaine and heroin and for money laundering.

According to The Mail on Sunday yesterday (25 March), Blackwood came to Britain in 2002 on a temporary visa.

A year later he married his wife Carmel, with whom he had two children.

He was granted leave to remain in the country in 2006 although shortly after his marriage, the newspaper said, he began an affair with Melissa Miller, from Hove.

He was arrested for money laundering in November 2005. In August 2007, while he was still on bail for the money laundering offence, he was caught selling class A drugs by undercover officers from Sussex Police.

In December 2007 Judge John Hardy at Lewes Crown Court jailed Blackwood for five years for eight counts of drug dealing and for the money laundering.

The court was told that he had made £81,000 and spent it on cars, jewellery and foreign travel.

The Mail on Sunday said that when Blackwood was released from prison he moved in with Melissa Miller, their four-year-old daughter, and her other child, an eight-year-old.

The couple are listed at the same address on the electoral roll. Blackwood’s wife lives in the Midlands.

The Home Office ruled that Blackwood should be returned to Jamaica in line with the usual practice of automatically deporting foreign criminals after they have served a significant prison sentence.

Blackwood appealed and lost his case. He took his fight to the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber.

He said that to deport him would have a detrimental effect on the family life of his partner and daughter, breaching their human rights. The tribunal agreed.

The Home Office may challenge the verdict in the Court of Appeal.