Corrupt immigration official Benjamin Orororo has been jailed for 5 years after abusing his position with the UK Border Agency (UKBA) and awarding a number of asylum seekers indefinite leave to stay in exchange for money.
37 year old Orororo, employed at the UKBA headquarters in Croydon, would take cash from asylum seekers who were due to fail in their asylum claims, then add notes to their cases saying that the claim had been approved by upper management.
Orororo pocketed almost £50,000 as a result of the scam. Ironically, until the point of his arrest, he had been cited by his employers as an example of honesty and hard work, and his photo had featured in the company magazine.
He appeared at Croydon Crown Court charged with 19 counts of wilful misconduct in a public office, and was sentenced to 5 years on each count, to run concurrently.
In sentencing, Judge John Stow stated "You deliberately set out to grant corruptly indefinite leave to remain to people that were not entitled to it, and what it worse, you did it for money.
The money was obtained by you as a result of your corrupt grant of indefinite leave to remain to quite a large number of people.
This sort of behaviour not only undermines the system of immigration control, a system which sadly nowadays is far too often subject to abuse, but it also completely undermines public confidence in the system of immigration control."
The court was told that Orororos wife, who also works for UKBA, has suffered from depression since her husband had been charged.
So far it is unclear whether the 19 asylum cases which were due to fail, and only received a successful outcome due to Orororos criminal activities, will be re-assessed and those asylum seekers involved removed from the country.
One would hope so, indeed there may well be a strong argument that every case in which he has been involved should be re-examined in the light of his corruption and obvious lack of integrity.
