FED:UK man to be deported after 41 years

AAP General News (Australia)
04-16-2011
FED:UK man to be deported after 41 years

CANBERRA, April 16 AAP - A British-born man who's lived in Australia for 41 years is
set to be deported after his visa was cancelled because of a long criminal record.

A spokesman for the Department of Immigration said that in deciding to deport Clifford
Tucker, 47, it had considered the length of time he had been in Australia, his links to
the community plus his character and criminal history.

He said the Australian government took very seriously its role in protecting the Australian
community from unacceptable risk or harm from criminal conduct by non-citizens.

The decision to cancel his visa had been affirmed by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal
last July and in February the Federal Court dismissed his appeal, he said.

"All non-citizens must meet the character requirements of the act and if someone does
not, they may have their visa cancelled and be removed form Australia," he said.

Mr Tucker, of Adelaide, is now awaiting deportation at the Villawood detention centre in Sydney.

He came to Australian aged six and has lived here ever since, never taking out Australian
citizenship.

During that time he notched up a substantial criminal record including a 12-year jail
sentence for attempted murder in the 1980s and a conviction for assault in 2009.

Adelaide lawyer Stephen Kenny, who at one time represented Guantanamo Bay detainee
David Hicks, said Mr Tucker had been fully assimilated into Australian society and was
for international purposes an Australian citizen.

"But technically he is not a citizen of Australia and is subject to deportation," he
told ABC radio.

"This is really in breach of his human rights. It's a country he grew up in, it's a
country which his family all lived in and it's a country he identifies with and has for
the last 41 years."

Mr Kenny said the law needed to be changed to ensure those who were effectively Australian
citizens could not be deported.

AAP mb/dep

KEYWORD: TUCKER

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