Black drug-dealer and gun criminal Andre James has been allowed to stay in Britain partly because he would return to a life of crime if he was deported back to Jamaica

Black criminal Andre James convinced judges that deporting him to Jamaica would make him more likely to re-offend - even though the Home Secretary wanted him removed from Britain after he was jailed for five years in 2007 for possessing a revolver and ammunition, supplying Class A drugs, carrying a blade in public and being in possession of criminal property. He was also allowed to stay on the grounds that his human right to a family life would be infringed by being forcibly returned, because he has two children in Britain. One of them was fathered while he appealed against his deportation. The case highlights growing concerns over the use of human rights legislation by foreign criminals to frustrate legislation which makes clear that anyone serving more than a year in prison should be automatically deported. Coalition ministers have launched a review of the way the crucial element of the law, the controversial Article 8 of the Convention on Human Rights - which guarantees a right to a private and family life - is being used. Ministers are also planning to rein in judges' human rights rulings, which Britain's most senior judiciary have admitted go further than the European Court in Strasbourg. MPs may be asked to back a powerful statement in the Commons in a bid to deter judges from gold-plating the human rights of criminals and immigration offenders by going far further than the legislation actually requires. In the latest judges upheld both parts of James's claim to stay in Britain - both his human rights claim, and his assertion that returning to Jamaica would increase the chance of recidivism, because of its criminal atmosphere. In their ruling upper immigration tribunal judge Peter King and deputy David Garratt said in their ruling: "We consider that returning him to Jamaica would expose him to the various temptations to which he has succumbed in this country, to the detriment of the welfare of society as a whole or to the appellant in particular. It is clear that drugs and the drugs trade is a significant feature of life in Jamaica and it may well be that, in commonsense, were the appellant to find difficulty in obtaining lawful employment upon return he would revert to a life of criminality. We assess, therefore, that the risk of his offending or re-offending is much greater were he to be returned to Jamaica, than it would be were he to be allowed to have the stability and support of his family and to obtain work." James, now 28, arrived in Britain in 1999, aged 16, on a visitor's visa. The Jamaican was granted indefinite leave to remain the following year because his father and stepmother were already settled here. According to the immigration courts, James took part in buying and selling cocaine for a prolonged period between 2004 - when he became a father for the first time with girlfriend Victoria McLean - and 2006, when he was arrested. Pleading guilty early the following year, he was give a mandatory minimum five year sentence under measures introduced by the previous Labor government to combat gun crime and released on license in the summer of 2009, by which time he knew that the Home Office was trying to deport him. Between losing his first appeal and winning on the second attempt James fathered a second child with McLean, born in January 2011. Having another child strengthened his family attachments in Britain and boosted his arguments against deportation. James has rarely had a job since his conviction and had turned down job offers since coming out of prison. James, who lives in Cinderhill, Nottingham, said: "I like it here - England is not like Jamaica. It's a very different country. Criminality is an everyday thing over there. I couldn't get a job over there as there's no work so I might fall back into committing crimes." McLean is the breadwinner and works as a customer service agent for an insurance firm, the court heard. James failed to pass a plumbing course in 2009. Dominic Raab MP, who is campaigning to reform Article 8, said: "It is bad enough that a man convicted of carrying a revolver and a blade cannot be deported on inflated human rights grounds, but it is astonishing that the judge was influenced by his assessment that the offender was more likely to re-offend if returned to Jamaica."