Illegal immigrant who won £17,000 payout from taxpayers for 'unlawful detention' is branded a 'one man crime wave' as he is jailed for 12 new offences



Joseph Mjemer, 29, who has around 30 previous offences, was jailed for two years for latest string of crimes

Mjemer won £17,360 compensation after authorities unlawfully detained him while investigating his asylum bid

Sentencing: Judge Stephen Holt

An illegal immigrant branded a ‘one man crime wave’ was jailed for two years today for a string of new offences - just a year after winning £17,360 compensation for being unlawfully detained while awaiting deportation.

Joseph Mjemer's list of 12 new crimes includes violence and handling stolen goods.

The 29-year-old from Yiewsley, West Drayton, arrived in the UK as a stowaway in 2003 and used at least five aliases and claimed to be from four different countries.

But last year a High Court Judge ruled he had been unlawfully held in prison while immigration officials tried to establish where he came from so they could deport him.

By that time he had already committed more than 20 offences.

Sentencing him to jail today, Harrow Crown Court Judge Stephen Holt told bearded body-builder Mjemer: ‘You could be described as a one-man crime wave that continues committing very annoying offences, that frightens and distresses the public.

‘You have built up in the last few years numerous convictions, covering numerous offences.

‘I take into account your difficult childhood, but where that was, who knows? Even you do not seem to know and I take into account that you spent four-and-a-half years in Home Office custody and the High Court ordered your release.

‘You have been given numerous chances and have failed to comply. The time has come for nothing other than a custodial sentence.’

‘You have a complete disregard for court orders and you have used up most of your mitigation,’ Judge Holt told the defendant, adding: ‘You have been given opportunities and not taken advantage of them.’

Ruling: Joseph Mjemer was awarded £17,000 in a taxpayer funded compensation payout after Judge Stephen Stewart QC ruled he was falsely imprisoned His latest appearance before a judge saw Mjemer convicted of assaulting two 17-year-olds on an Underground train, plus two counts of threatening behaviour towards a member of Tube staff and a schoolteacher with a group of children. He was also convicted of unlawfully possessing anabolic steroids, driving a motorbike while disqualified and uninsured, handling a stolen iPhone and failing to attend court hearings on four different occasions. These offences put him in breach of a 12-month suspended sentence for handling a stolen car and this was activated.



Judge Stephen Stewart QC ruled that the last four months of Mr Mjemer's detention had been unlawful

He was also disqualified from driving for three years.

Mjemer’s lawyer Mr Scott Wainwright told the court: ‘He has difficulty with anger management. Keep in mind this young man’s difficult upbringing.

‘He was brought up in the western Sahara, in Algeria and this has had a detrimental effect on his mental health and contributes to the volatile way he seems to behave.’

The lawyer claimed anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs Mjemer received in Home Office detention affected his memory and ability to keep court and probation appointments.

Mjemer told the judge from the dock: ‘Probation have failed to help me, they have not referred me to the Hillingdon mental health unit. I have been kicked out of three surgeries because I cannot control myself. I can’t hear the word ‘no’.’

Last year Mjemer's lawyers argued at the hearing in London that he had been unlawfully held in prison while immigration officials probed his claim for asylum.