A serial offender dubbed ‘The General’ has received another prison sentence despite a 17-year Home Office battle to deport him remaining unsuccessful, with both Nigeria and Sierra Leone refusing to accept the convicted drug dealer who arrived in Britain as an undocumented child.
Cardiff Crown Court jailed Joland Giwa for three years and 11 months after police raided his Risca, South Wales residence discovering approximately £17,000 worth of class A drugs including 126g of crack cocaine valued at £13,500, alongside heroin, cocaine and £2,040 cash.
The 36-year-old father-of-four has faced deportation proceedings since 2009 when the UK government withdrew indefinite leave to remain granted in 2005 following his first conviction, though neither potential destination country acknowledges connection to the criminal who landed at Heathrow aged ten alongside his twin brother without parents, guardians or documentation.
Sierra Leone has consistently denied Giwa maintains ties to the nation, whilst Nigeria similarly refuses accepting him, leaving British authorities unable to remove the repeat offender despite judge Christopher Felstead’s latest sentencing hearing documenting nine previous convictions covering 16 offences.
Giwa’s criminal history began with Croydon’s ‘Don’t Say Nothing’ gang—abbreviated as DSN—where he terrorised streets whilst boasting on YouTube about “shanking” rivals using slang for stabbing before receiving an initial 27-month sentence in February 2009 for robberies and thefts.
Authorities relocated him to a Newport bail hostel hoping distance from the capital would sever criminal connections, though the decision sparked political outrage with late Labour MP Paul Flynn condemning what he characterised as “dumping” a man courts and police deemed too dangerous for London.
“Since coming to this city he has committed violent robbery. There ought to be a more even spread across the country,” Mr Flynn stated following Giwa’s 2015 conviction receiving seven-and-a-half years for a terrifying William Hill bookmakers robbery in Ringland, Newport.
The defendant was subsequently jailed four years and one month in April 2020 after admitting trafficking drugs at a children’s playground, arriving for the transaction via electric scooter before police apprehended him.
Defence barrister Hashim Salmman told the court Giwa—who lost an infant son whilst in custody—has struggled with “cultural barriers” since childhood arrival in Britain, with his immigration status preventing employment or state benefit claims creating financial pressures.
Prosecutor Nigel Fryer detailed how officers followed Giwa’s vehicle to his Risca residence where they discovered the drugs haul in his rucksack, with the defendant subsequently admitting possession with intent to supply crack cocaine, heroin and cocaine alongside criminal property possession and breaching a suspended sentence.
A Home Office spokesperson stated: “We are reforming human rights laws and replacing the broken appeals system to scale up deportations and stop foreign criminals and illegal migrants from gaming the system.”
1 Comment
Human rights laws/broken systems have got absolutely nothing to do with this. You can’t simply deport someone without the permission of the destination country. If they refuse – and in this case, why wouldn’t they? – it’s game over.