A paedophile migrant convicted of sexually abusing a five-year-old child has won the right to challenge his deportation after a judge ruled he made an “honest mistake” in failing to declare his criminal past.
Edi Cardoso Ramos, 29, did not disclose his conviction when applying to remain in the UK.
The Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber heard Ramos committed the offence in Portugal in 2012 as a teenager.
He was convicted two years later, aged 19, and given a three-year suspended prison sentence, which was not activated after he met its conditions.
Ramos moved to the UK in 2018, around a year after his sentence ended.
In 2020, he applied for leave to remain and answered “No” when asked about previous convictions.
He later claimed he believed the question referred only to offences committed in the UK.
The form asked: “Have you ever been convicted of a criminal offence, or arrested or charged with an offence that you are on trial for or awaiting trial?”
The Home Office argued Ramos ‘posed a risk to women and girls in the United Kingdom’
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His conviction only came to light in 2024, when police found him with a prostitute in his car.
He was given a caution for the incident, but a background check revealed his earlier conviction in Portugal.
The Home Office then began deportation proceedings, arguing Ramos “posed a risk to women and girls in the United Kingdom”.
However, the 29-year-old appealed against the decision.
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The Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber heard Ramos committed the offence in Portugal in 2012
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Judge Paul Lodato ruled in his favour, allowing the case to be reconsidered and giving him the chance to fight his removal.
The judge assessed whether Ramos posed a “genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat” to society.
He concluded the Home Office had not shown he represented a current danger.
“Having considered this issue very carefully, I am not satisfied, based on the evidence before me, that the (Home Office) has established that the threat (Ramos) represents is a present threat,” Judge Lodato said.
The judge concluded the Home Office had not shown he represented a current danger
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GETTYAddressing the prostitution offence, the judge added: “I do not think that it has been made out that outraging public decency and soliciting indicates a continuation of a pattern of offending of the kind of which (Ramos) was convicted in 2014.”
On the failure to disclose his conviction, the judge accepted Ramos’s explanation “as being credible”.
“I find that he made an honest mistake when he answered the question about his previous convictions and that his failure to disclose the material fact of his 2014 conviction in Portugal was not dishonest,” he said.
Judge Lodato said the non-disclosure did not prove Ramos posed a present threat, describing him as “a genuine and sufficiently serious threat, but one that is not present”.
The ruling means Ramos can now pursue a fresh hearing in his bid to avoid deportation to Portugal.
