Australia’s immigration minister has personally ordered the deportation of a British domestic violence offender after his victim complained to the government.
Terry Phillips, 41, was sentenced to nine months and 15 days’ jail in Victoria after pleading guilty to a string of charges for attacking his pregnant ex-girlfriend Nadine Hams, her children and another woman, and was placed on a 15-month Community Corrections Order after his release.
Phillips applied to serve the order in Queensland, but Ms Hams claimed he was working in the mines and “making a fortune”, and alleged he was breaching his CCO. Phillips was also charged with assaulting another woman in Mackay, but was found not guilty last month.
Ms Hams called for his deportation in the media and reported Phillips to the government, saying “he’s dangerous and he shouldn’t be here”, resulting in her getting a phone call from Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, who told her he had intervened, 9News reported.
“A couple of days ago the brief came to me on Terry Phillips’ visa, which I cancelled,” Mr Burke told her during the call.
Ms Hams said she was “lost for words” afterwards, and thanked him repeatedly.
“I had a meltdown in the car, I was hysterical crying and beside myself because I thought, you know, I didn’t really think it would happen,” Ms Hams said.
Ms Hams said she was “pretty proud of myself” and that she hoped the case would inspire other women to come forward and do the same.
“If someone’s on a visa I expect them to treat Australians with respect and when they don’t I check against the Migration Act and see if there are grounds for cancellation, and if there are you can leave,” Mr Burke said.
Phillips was arrested by Australian Border Force officers last week and placed in immigration detention awaiting removal, which could take months.
Mr Burke’s intervention after hundreds of foreign criminals who were refusing to be deported, including paedophiles, murderers and rapists, were let out of immigration detention by the Labor government following a High Court decision and allowed to remain in Australia.
Dozens have gone on to commit more crimes, including an African man who is back behind bars charged with the brutal bashing murder of a photographer in Melbourne.
In July a grieving widow spoke out after learning that an Indian driver who was jailed for five years for killing her husband had still not been deported due to repeated appeals.
Federal deportation laws require the cancellation of visas of non-citizen criminals who have been sentenced to a year or more in prison, and Victorian magistrates have been given training on how to impose lesser sentences so as to avoid triggering deportation.
As of July 31 there were 965 people in immigration detention facilities, 89.4% of whom had a criminal history, while in August the number of rejected asylum seekers awaiting deportation hit 100,157, according to Department of Home Affairs data.
Header image: Left, Terry Phillips. Right, Tony Burke with Labor volunteers during the federal election campaign (Facebook).
