The £17k award given to the illegal immigrant Joseph Mjemer has rightly angered many, given that he committed 20 offences since arriving in the UK in order to claim asylum.

Judge Stewart decided that the Home Office were not rigorously trying to establish his nationality to enable deportation during the last four months of his incarceration and that this period of imprisonment was unlawful.

Joseph Mjemer has refused to provide the Home Office with his place of birth details and continues to defy the Home Office following his release giving little scope to establish his true nationality.

The scale of the Award set against this background is quite appalling especially as the sitting Judge could have set a nominal amount in the Award.

I have two points to make: If Joseph is entitled to asylum, he must surely provide evidence that he cannot return to the country he departed from; as he refused to do this he cannot be granted asylum and therefore must be held in a transient state until/unless he discloses this information or it is otherwise established.

The cost of this is borne by the UK taxpayers.

An impasse, which could be settled with new legislation except the EU Human Rights Act would overrule our sovereign ability to create and impose legislation that conflicts with EU Law!

Secondly, imprisonment was seen as restitution for his crimes, which included property damage and doubtless involved those who suffered the loss to bear the cost.

Would it not have been more expedient to grant the Award as the law presently demands, and then to ensure financial recompense was meted out to his victims?

In all of this we, the UK, are bound hand and foot to EU Law and the unaccountable bureaucracy that creates it notwithstanding the sheer lunacy that prevails at times within the judiciary. Phil Heaton, Consulting Civil and Structural Engineers, Blackburn