Inside the courts where migrants appeal removal from Britain – amid clamour to leave ECHR
How often do migrants successfully fight their removal from Britain on the basis of their human rights?
The clamour from the right for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights has been growing – even some high-profile Labour figures say it needs reform.
So, I’ve come to an immigration appeal court – unannounced – to find out how it is used by migrants and their lawyers here.
Decisions delayed, outcomes unpublished
I get to the fourth floor of a large court building in Birmingham.
The first case I’m ushered into to see is a 38-year-old Nigerian man. He came on a student visa – but that ran out.
Just before he did, he put in a claim to stay on the basis of his relationship with a woman, who is originally from Barbados but has lived and worked in Britain since 2015.
The judge, who will decide their fate, dials in via video link. He hears the man’s partner has a 17-year-old daughter.
She lives with her biological father, but the couple insist she is so close to the Nigerian man she calls him “Dad”. This is an appeal being made under Article 8 of the ECHR – the right to a family life.
The following day, it’s a different judge – this time he’s here in person.
The man in front of him is appealing against deportation to Kenya. He came to the UK as a baby with his mother and siblings.
As a teenager, he was jailed for almost 10 years for stabbing a man, causing serious injuries.
It emerges that his case is also based on Article 8 of the ECHR. Since leaving prison, he’s fathered a child who has just turned two.
There are arguments made too under Article 3 of the ECHR – which protects against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment – due to the man being diagnosed with “generalised anxiety” and depression.
It will be a few weeks before decisions are made on these cases – and the results won’t be published by the court.
I leave, thinking how opaque the process feels.
It’s also easy to see why some politicians are pointing to the ECHR – a treaty signed after the Second World War to protect the rights of everyone in the Council of Europe – as a barrier to removing more migrants.
Between April 2008 and June 2021, 21,521 foreign nationals were due to be deported because of crimes they’d committed
Is the ECHR really a barrier to deportation?
“I think there’s a strong kind of political dynamic there which has led to, in some ways, you might say, a kind of scapegoating of the European Convention,” says Alice Donald, Professor of Human Rights law at Middlesex University, London.
She’s not convinced that withdrawal from ECHR would make a big difference to the number of people the UK is able to remove or deport.
“The honest answer is we don’t know, we don’t have enough data to say that,” she says.
“The data that we do have, for example, in relation to the number of human rights appeals against deportation by foreign national offenders, which has been very much in the news this year, suggests that it would really make only a marginal difference.”
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Those figures, published by the Home Office, reveal that between April 2008 and June 2021, 21,521 foreign nationals due to be deported because of crimes they’d committed appealed, and 2,392 were successful on human rights grounds only. That’s around 181 on average per year.
We don’t have figures for how many other types of immigrants are allowed to stay on the basis of human rights. Small boat migrants who claim asylum would usually rely on another convention.
“In terms of asylum claims, it is governed by the 1951 Refugee Convention as a different treaty,” Prof Donald explains.
“There is, of course, overlapping protection with the prohibition of torture in the European Convention… so if the Refugee Convention were still in place, then of course people seeking asylum would rely on that.”
She also believes there have been “a number of erroneous stories or exaggerated stories”.
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Reform would deport legal migrants
Debunking the chicken nugget myth
In February 2025, it was widely reported that an Albanian criminal’s deportation was halted over his son’s dislike of foreign chicken nuggets.
“What actually happened in that case is that it went to the upper tribunal (second-tier immigration appeal court) which ordered that he could be deported. And also specifically said that the evidence to do with chicken nuggets was nowhere near the level required,” Prof Donald says.
What leaving the ECHR would mean
Withdrawal from the ECHR would mean the guarantees it provides would be removed for everyone in the UK, not just migrants.
It not only protects the rights to life, liberty, fair trial and freedom of expression among others, but also prohibits torture, slavery and discrimination.
Pulling out of the treaty could also breach the Belfast Good Friday Agreement – though some say such an outcome is avoidable.
However, in a country where immigration is the top issue of concern for voters, there are some who now think that is a price worth paying.
The mistaken release of an asylum seeker who was jailed for sexual offences has prompted widespread condemnation – and an extensive police operation.
Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38, had assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping, about a week after he had crossed the Channel and arrived in the UK by boat.
Last night, the teenager’s father was visibly upset as he turned up at HMP Chelmsford – asking for answers on how Kebatu was freed just one month into a 12-month sentence.
He did not want to speak on camera – but told Sky correspondent Mollie Malone that he was “frustrated” at the thought of the Ethiopian national being back on the streets.
“The justice system has let us down,” he said.
Footage has emerged that appears to show Kebatu in Chelmsford town centre following his release – dressed in prison clothes and clutching his belongings in a see-through bag.
He then headed to the railway station and boarded a train bound for London’s Liverpool Street, which departed at 12.41pm yesterday.
Follow latest developments on manhunt
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Accidental release ‘damaging’ for government
‘You couldn’t make it up’
Kebatu’s case had a high profile and led to weeks of protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, where he was staying alongside other asylum seekers.
When he was sentenced last month, Judge Christopher Williams warned he posed a “significant risk of reoffending”.
The Liberal Democrat MP for Chelmsford, Marie Goldman, told Sky presenter Barbara Serra she was “appalled, frustrated and angry about how this could possibly happen in the first place”.
She said it is clear something went “fundamentally wrong” at HMP Chelmsford – and her constituents are “fed up” with systems not working and underinvestment.
“It just destroys trust at a time when emotions are riding high. We’ve seen protests over the past few weeks and months, and there’s a lot of fear out there,” Ms Goldman added.
“It is so easy to lose trust and really hard to gain it – we need the government to get a grip on this.”
Protests were held at The Bell Hotel for several weeks
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp described Kebatu as a “dangerous illegal immigrant” – and said his premature release shows “staggering incompetence”.
He told Sky News: “We also need an urgent apology from Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Justice Secretary David Lammy who have presided over this fiasco.”
Mr Lammy, who also serves as deputy prime minister, has said he is “appalled” and “livid on behalf of the public that Kebatu is at large”.
He confirmed a full investigation is being launched, adding: “He should be deported back to Ethiopia after the sexual assaults that he’s committed.”
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Manhunt continues for Kebatu
Extensive policing operation under way
Multiple forces are now involved in the manhunt for Kebatu – including Essex Police, the British Transport Police and the Metropolitan Police in London.
Policing commentator Graham Wettone told Sky presenter Gillian Joseph that detectives will be carefully piecing together his movements after walking free from HMP Chelmsford.
“All these forces will now be looking at the CCTV from the train itself – trying to locate him on the train and trying to identify at which stop he went off at, and where he went from that station,” he explained.
Mr Wettone said information from Essex Police’s initial investigation – including the contacts, friends and associates he had at the Bell Hotel – will also be a factor.
Questions will also be asked of the prison authorities: “Has he had any visits or phone calls? Has he got any friends or family in the country?”
He added that additional officers will have been allocated to the manhunt: “The Met will have some significant resources looking for him – maybe the Territorial Support Group or additional borough-based officers in and around Liverpool Street first of all.”
The British Transport Police could also be involved in further inquiries if Kebatu ended up travelling on the Underground.
“It really depends on where that thread goes – if they can locate where he got off, and then where he went to,” Mr Wettone said.
“This work is very, very fast-paced – there are detectives and intelligence officers working in the background, chasing up on leads and updating the teams on the ground.”
Experts are warning that without “fast changes” the UK could run out of drinking water in the future.
The first seven months of 2025 were the driest since 1976, with reservoirs across England only 56.1% full on average, according to the Environment Agency.
“I think that we do need to worry about the fact that there is this possibility we could run out,” Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology from Reading University, told Sky News.
“It’s only if we start thinking like that, that we’re going to start conserving our water, otherwise we just take it completely for granted.
“It is all of our fault, we have not been paying attention to what’s going on… we need some very fast changes to the way that we are using water and the way that we’re storing water in order to stop this being a problem in the future, because our summers are only going to get hotter.”
By 2050, the government says that England could face a shortfall of five billion litres of water every day.
‘Growing pressure’ on water system
A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said: “This government recognises the growing pressure on our water system and is taking decisive action.
“We’re delivering over £104bn of private investment to fix leaking pipes, build nine new reservoirs and secure our water supply for the future.”
Latest figures suggest that around 2,690 megalitres of water is lost every day in England through leaks – the equivalent of 1,076 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
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‘We have invested an extra £10m’
“Leaks are a really important issue for us. We have invested an extra £10m just to deal with the weather that we’ve seen this summer,” said Dr Geoff Darch, head of strategic asset planning for Anglian Water.
Anglian Water is also hoping to build two new reservoirs in the East of England.
“We don’t want to stop people using water, it is absolutely essential for everything that we need it to do,” Dr Darch said.
“But I think we’ve got to a point now where we have to realise that water is a precious resource, it’s something that we all have to look after so that we have it for future generations and for the environment and with climate change and drought, we will need more reservoirs.”
The government claims it is fast-tracking new reservoirs to address the problem
Concerns about ‘whole system starting to collapse’
In August, the UK received just 62% of its average rainfall, according to the Met Office, which is leading a group of residents to monitor their water stocks closely.
“We collect all our own water from the rain, and so if we don’t have the rain that’s a significant issue,” explained Simon Tilly, director of the Hockerton eco housing project in Nottinghamshire.
He told Sky News they were working together to use less water.
“I suppose I’m most concerned about the whole system starting to collapse. There’s potential for longer droughts and us having a lot of water stress, there’s potential for a lot of floods when the drought finishes… and just generally that system going into random patterns where we’re getting more droughts and more floods,” he added.
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