A refugee convicted of a serious sex offence with a 13-year-old girl cannot be sent back to his home country because deportation was ‘not fair’ on him, Appeal judges have ruled.

They said that Wilfred Mosira can stay in Britain despite his crime and even though there is no threat to his safety or freedom in his native Zimbabwe.

Three Appeal judges accused Home Office lawyers of confusion over Mr Mosira’s status as a refugee and of acting too late in the saga of the long-running case when they finally put forward proper arguments for his deportation.

A refugee convicted of a serious sex offence with a 13-year-old girl cannot be sent back to his home country because deportation was ‘not fair’ on him, Appeal judges have ruled

Lord Justice Sales said ‘it is not fair to Mr Mosira’ for the Government’s lawyers to raise ‘at the eleventh hour’ the arguments that could have seen him thrown out of the country.

The case of the paedophile sex offender who dodged deportation because of legal technicalities was made public a day after the Daily Mail revealed that an Al Qaeda terrorist caught with manuals detailing how to attack nightclubs and airports has been given £250,000 in legal aid to try to avoid being deported to Jordan.

A key reason that 31-year-old Mr Mosira can now remain in Britain is that lawyers representing Theresa May, who was Home Secretary when the deportation case began, argued that he should be sent home because he would not face real persecution in Zimbabwe.

But, the judges said, Mr Mosira had never been given refugee status on the grounds that he was in any danger in Zimbabwe, and so the Home Office lawyers had been making the wrong argument.

In fact, the Appeal ruling found, Mr Mosira came to Britain under a short-lived scheme operated by Tony Blair’s government which allowed children of refugees to be recognised as refugees themselves.

His mother, the judges said, had been recognised as a refugee in 2001 not because she was in any political trouble but because she wanted health treatment on the NHS.

She was recognised as a refugee, Lord Justice Sales said, ‘purely because of the lack of medical facilities available in Zimbabwe to treat her medical condition as HIV plus.’

Mosira can now remain in Britain because lawyers representing Theresa May, who was Home Secretary when the deportation case began, argued he should be sent home because he would not face real persecution in Zimbabwe

Her son came to Britain in 2003 at the age of 17 and was himself recognised as a refugee.

But in 2012, Lord Justice Sales said, he was convicted of two counts of sexual activity with an underage girl who was 13.

Mr Mosira, who was aged 25 at the time of the crime, was sentenced to three years in jail.

The judge said: ‘There is no dispute that this constituted serious criminal offending. There is also no dispute that Mr Mosira qualifies as a foreign criminal.’

After the conviction Mr Mosira was told he would be deported, and a four-and-a-half year legal battle over his right to stay in Britain began.

In 2013 lawyers for Mrs May told Mr Mosira that his refugee status as someone fleeing from persecution was being withdrawn.

But, Lord Justice Sales said, because he had never fled persecution ‘it was open to doubt whether this was an appropriate procedural step to take.’

Lord Justice Sales said ‘it is not fair to Mr Mosira’ for the Government’s lawyers to raise ‘at the eleventh hour’ the arguments that could have seen him thrown out of the country

During the course of the next three years the case went through three immigration tribunal hearings.

During these cases lawyers for Mr Mosira said he would face ill-treatment if returned to Zimbabwe, because he was associated with the MDC opposition movement.

Tribunal judges however found that he was not associated with any political movement and faced no danger from President Mugabe or his supporters.

They also noted that he and his mother had travelled to Zimbabwe in 2010 for his father’s funeral without trouble.

In 2014 a probation officer reported that Mr Mosira posed a high risk of committing further sex offences, the Appeal judges said.

But by 2015 his probation officer had revised her opinion and said he ‘posed a low likelihood of re-offending’ and was in ‘a healthy and supportive relationship with a partner.’

In May this year in the Court of Appeal lawyers for the Home Office said for the first time that Mr Mosira should not be treated as a refugee whatever the reason that he was first allowed refugee status.

Lord Justice Sales said this was ‘an arguable issue of law’ but ‘justice requires that we refuse permission to raise it at the eleventh hour on this appeal’.

He said ‘it is not fair to Mr Mosira to do so’, and was also unfair to his lawyers who had not had a chance to prepare new arguments.

The judges rejected an appeal by the Home Office that would have secured Mr Mosira’s deportation and added that the case for deportation ‘became confused at an early stage’ and had been ‘very messy.’

Mr Mosira, who has been assisted by lawyers since 2013, was represented at the appeal by both a QC and a junior barrister, and by immigration specialist solicitors, Turpin and Miller, who were recognised in 2012 as Legal Aid Firm of the Year.