A convicted sex trafficker was arrested on Brighton seafront just over 18 months after being deported to Romania having served a prison sentence in Britain.
Ion Raducan, also known as Ion Paun, 36, of no fixed address, returned to Britain under a false identity.
Raducan had made several attempts to enter the country – some of them successful – because his wife and five children were living here, Hove Crown Court was told.
Once here, he hired a car in Brighton in July – and last month he was arrested by officers from the Sussex Police Tactical Firearms Unit in Marine Parade, Brighton.
At Hove Crown Court last Wednesday (11 October), Raducan admitted breaching a deportation order and seeking and obtaining leave to enter or remain in the country by deception.
He also pleaded guilty to breaching a slavery and trafficking prevention order which was imposed at Manchester Crown Court two years ago.
The order was imposed when Raducan was jailed for 27 months for arranging or facilitating the transport of a person for exploitation as a prostitute under modern slavery laws.
James Norman, prosecuting, told Hove Crown Court that Raducan had a total of 10 convictions for 14 offences from 2017 to 2021, most of them “relatively minor”, relating to dishonesty and driving.
Andrew Stephens, defending, said: “He was booted out – to use an inelegant phrase – but comes back and he keeps coming back.
“He had a life here. He has a wife who is also a Romanian citizen, with settled status. They have five children, aged 10 months to nine years old. Three of those children were born in this country.
“When he was deported, they remained. They were born here. They have a life here. They were settled. The children only know England as a home. Even the ones born in Romania have only ever known England.
“The thing that drove the family to come to England in the first place was because they come from the south of Romania, near the Danube, which is very poor.
“There simply wasn’t the opportunity to support the family well back in Romania.
“He was the breadwinner so felt compelled to come back time and time again to his family to support them. Nothing succeeded.”
He took his wife’s surname to obtain a new passport in his false name but, with his latest arrest, his wife had returned to Romania with the children to live with a relative.
Mr Stephens said: “It’s cramped. It’s difficult and they survive on handouts. The children are having to adapt and will adapt. It’s alien – but it’s the choice that’s had to be made.
“Now he had no need to come back. He has no desire to come back. All he wants now is to be deported.”
Judge Jeremy Gold told Raducan: “You obviously have a complete disregard for laws preventing unlawful entry into the United Kingdom.
“You are a serial offender and being arrested is no disincentive to you trying time and time again to return to the United Kingdom.
“The circumstances of this case are so severe that a deterrent sentence is required.
“The total sentence would have been one of eight years’ imprisonment. I reduce that to six years to reflect your guilty plea at the plea and trial preparation hearing.
“You will serve half of that in custody before release on licence and you can expect to be immediately deported upon release.”
Outside court, a woman who said that she was Raducan’s sister wept.
Raducan was previously jailed for being part of a gang trafficking women for sex and controlling prostitution for gain in Manchester and the north west of England.
They were brought to justice by Greater Manchester Police as part of Operation Elba, with Raducan sentenced to 27 months in prison in November 2021 and served with a deportation order.
He was deported on Thursday 27 January last year but tried to come back to Britain through different airports from October last year, sometimes succeeding.
Once back, he breached his 10-year slavery and trafficking prevention order by hiring a car and having a mobile phone without informing the police.
Officers stopped him in a vehicle in Marine Parade, Brighton, in the early hours of Monday 4 September.
Inspector Oliver Fisher, from the Tactical Firearms Unit, said: “Our officers were out on patrol and conducted a check on the vehicle which Rudacan had hired under a false identity.
“Thanks to the proactive stop, these offences by Rudacan were brought to light.
“It demonstrates that our highly trained firearms officers conduct a variety of duties above and beyond armed response and regularly carry out patrols to assist with our colleagues across the force.
“We are determined to disrupt criminals who prey on vulnerable people with trafficking and modern slavery to ensure the victims are properly safeguarded.”
Detective Inspector Tony Platten, Greater Manchester Police’s modern slavery and human trafficking lead, said: “He has showed a blatant disregard once again to the orders imposed on him after serving a custodial sentence.
“And when information was received that he had returned to UK soil, another co-ordinated approach across a number of force areas and actions were taken.
“The most recent result was where we have provided colleagues over in Sussex with the support they needed through gathering evidence as well as helping to locate, arrest and prosecute him further.
“These orders around trafficking and deportation are designed to reduce the risk of further harm being caused.
“Hopefully, this continued approach reinforces the message to victims we will investigate all available lines of inquiry while those who commit serious modern slavery offences will be pursued and dealt with robustly in order to protect some of the most vulnerable in our communities.”
Tony Hilton, assistant director of the Home Office Criminal and Financial Investigation unit, said: “This is a highly deceptive individual who has repeatedly tried to breach our borders and exploit vulnerable people.
“Thanks to the dedication of police and immigration officers, he has been relentlessly pursued and brought to justice.
“We will continue to work closely with our policing partners to investigate, arrest and dismantle people-trafficking operations such as this one, to protect our borders and save lives.”
