Rapist ex-mayor to be deported after losing appeal

A convicted rapist and former town mayor will be deported to Latvia after a judge ruled it would not breach his human rights.

Aigars Balsevics, the former Mayor of Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, was jailed for six and a half years in 2023 for raping a woman twice at her residence in 2021.

She cried and repeatedly told him "no", but Balsevics, 46, ignored her and when she tried to leave the room he stopped her and raped her again, his trial heard.

He could be conditionally released in December next year and his appeal against a deportation order has been dismissed by an Upper Tribunal judge.

A judgement said Balsevics was served with a deportation decision in 2023, before he made written representations "amounting to a human rights claim".

The representations claimed there were "very compelling circumstances outweighing the need for his deportation on the basis of his family and private life".

The Home Office refused this claim and ordered that he be deported, but a judge later found this was "unduly harsh".

The home secretary then appealed to the Upper Tribunal "on the grounds that the judge had failed to apply the correct legal tests".

The Upper Tribunal judge said the evidence "falls short of demonstrating very compelling circumstances outweighing the public interest in deportation".

"As such, I find that the appellant's removal to Latvia, pursuant to the deportation order issued against him, would not be disproportionate and would not be in breach of Article 8 [of the Human Rights Act]," said judge Susan Kebede.

A government Home Office spokesperson said: "We will do everything in our power to remove foreign criminals from British soil.

"More than 70,000 illegal migrants and foreign national offenders have been returned since this government took office, a 41% increase."

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