A senior High Court judge has refused a Government request to reconsider a tribunal's decision that Learco Chindamo, the murderer of headteacher Philip Lawrence, cannot be deported to Italy.
Immigration minister Liam Byrne instructed officials to apply to a senior judge for a last-ditch review. But Mr Justice Collins, in a ruling announced on Wednesday, has upheld the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal's decision that Chindamo, jailed in 1996, cannot be deported on release. He becomes eligible for parole next year.
Refusing to order a reconsideration, the judge said: "There is no error of law in the careful determination of the tribunal."
The ruling will come as a blow to Mr Byrne, who says the Government wants foreign nationals who commit serious crimes to be "automatically deported".
It also follows news that serial sex offender Mohammed Kendeh is to be allowed to stay in Britain because deporting him to his native Sierre Leone would breach his human right to a family life.
In the Chindamo case, the judge emphasised that his decision was mainly based on EU regulations and the fact that it would be "disproportionate" to remove the 27-year-old, as an EU citizen, under those regulations.
Although born in Italy, Chindamo has lived in the UK since the age of six.
He was 15 when, in 1995, he stabbed Mr Lawrence, who was trying to protect another pupil at the gates of his west London school.
It was reported that ministers told Frances Lawrence, the teacher's widow, that they intended to seek Chindamo's deportation to Italy when he became eligible for parole in 2008.
On Wednesday the judge said: "If assurances were given to the victim's widow or to the public that the appellant would be removed, they should not have been and cannot now justify removal."
