A Nigerian migrant who threatened a British mother with a knife in front of her child has won a human rights case to stay in the UK.
Olajide Shinaba, 32, was jailed for 11 months after he pulled a knife on a woman who had taken him off the street.
The woman, described as his friend, had offered him accommodation, but Shinaba told her he was leaving, only to barge into the address two days later to collect his possessions.
When an argument ensued, he took out a knife and lunged at the woman while her young daughter watched.
Shinaba claimed that if the mother had been a man, he would have stabbed her.
He pleaded guilty to affray and was sentenced to 11 months in prison in December 2018.
The Home Office had decided to deport him due to his conviction, and his appeal was rejected on grounds it was conducive to the public good.
However, he has now appealed the deportation decision after a judge ruled he would have difficulty reintegrating into life in Nigeria.
Upon his release, he married a British woman in an Islamic ceremony and has since had two children with her.
An immigration judge allowed his appeal on human rights grounds due to the significant obstacles of reintegration he would face in Nigeria.
Shinaba, a Nigerian citizen, has lived in the UK since June 2003.
He was granted a residence card in July 2003, but this was revoked in January 2006. However, he was granted discretionary leave to remain in 2011.
After that expired, he applied for indefinite leave to remain in 2017, but while this was being considered, he committed the offence.
The court heard that it was accepted he only wished to scare the woman in a moment of madness and did not intend to stab her.
He later blamed an incident which left him with a fractured skull in November 2008 for his actions, claiming it left him slow at processing information.
However, the tribunal found that he had achieved GCSEs and had applied to go to university in the UK.
In August 2021, he married a British partner in an Islamic ceremony and had two children with her, born in June 2022 and November 2023.
He also has a third daughter with a previous partner, who was born in February 2018 and is also British.
The court was told that he now has a genuine and subsisting parental relationship and that his wife is pregnant again.
Having initially had his human rights claim rejected by the Home Office, he successfully appealed it, only for that decision to be set aside when the Home Office launched a counter appeal.
He has now had his subsequent appeal allowed on human rights grounds in the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber.
Upper Tribunal Judge Luke Bulpitt said, “Overall, I find that Shinaba has during his 22 years of residence in the United Kingdom established a strong private life which involves relationships with his mother, father, step-father and siblings.
“Having developed and been educated in London, Shinaba has become familiar with and participated in the customs, language and practices of London life, through which he has a sense of belonging in the city which was part of his formation.
“I also find that he has, since his release from prison and while waiting for the Home Office to make a decision about his application for indefinite leave to remain, formed a family life.”
The judge added that Shinaba left Nigeria when he was ten years old and only returned once the following year, aged 11.
Judge Bulpitt continued, “He has no adult understanding of how life in that country is carried on, no experience of work in the country and no experience of obtaining accommodation or state support.
“On the face of it, as a returnee who left Nigeria as a child and who has not returned since the age of 11, Shinaba cannot reasonably be regarded as an insider in Nigeria.
“I conclude that he would face very significant obstacles to integration there as a result of his lack of any adult experience of the country, his lack of awareness of the day-to-day life there and the limitations on his capacity to adapt and establish himself as a result of the traumatic injury he suffered at the age of 15.“
