Deputy Jackie Hilton says that the States needs to get tougher with its immigration policy to ensure that people with convictions for serious sex, drug or violent offences are barred from living and working in the Island.
The former Assistant Home Affairs Minister, who says the Island’s current immigration system is ‘failing’, believes that a permit system should be introduced and that criminal record checks should be carried out on those seeking to move to Jersey.
She spoke out after Anthony Jalam was jailed for 4½ years on Tuesday for a ‘brutal’ and sustained sex attack on a 22-year-old woman who he met on a night out.
Deputy Hilton has previously raised concerns about criminals moving to Jersey after it was revealed that Northern Irish killer Paul Greenan, who stamped and kicked nursery nurse Tracy Burns to death in March 2004, was wanted by Ulster police at the time of the murder.
Her lifeless body was found between a wall and a vehicle in a car park off Paris Lane at First Tower.
As reported yesterday, Jalam, a labourer originally from Rotherham, carried his terrified victim across a deserted car park, trapping her between a wall and a parked car, before hitting her four times to the head and forcing her to perform a sex act during the 20-minute assault.
It has emerged that 28-year-old Jalam, who admitted indecent assault and assault, has a criminal record dating back to 2003 which includes offences of violence, possession of an offensive weapon – an axe – and burglary.
Although he had no previous convictions for sexual offences he had received a 12-week suspended prison sentence and a two-year restraining order for domestic violence against his then partner and mother of his children.
Jalam, who was released from prison after serving a sentence for burglary shortly before he moved to Jersey last year, was in breach of his licence – an order which offenders have to abide by after being released early.
He claimed he moved because he was in fear of his life after receiving an Osman warning – issued by police when they have credible evidence that someone is at risk of being killed or seriously injured – by South Yorkshire Police in November 2014.
He is liable to be returned to prison in the UK to serve a further portion of his burglary sentence as a result of that breach.
Today, Deputy Hilton, a former Centenier, said that she believed the Island’s immigration system needed an overhaul to prevent offenders such as Jalam from moving to Jersey.
‘I think the immigration system that we have got is failing,’ she added.
‘We’ve not got control on immigration and when you hear of instances like this, of people coming into the Island with appalling records, who go on to commit horrendous crimes, it enforces the idea that some sort of permit system whereby criminal records are checked is needed.
‘I think the Council of Ministers have to get a serious grip on the population issue.
‘Until they do that we simply don’t have any control over who is coming here, as has been proved by what has happened in this instance.
‘At the end of the day if we are seriously going to attempt to control our population, which has just topped the 100,000 mark, we should be issuing permits to people that we actually want to come here.
‘We would not choose to allow someone to live and work here who have records for these sorts of offences.’
Meanwhile, Crown Advocate William Redgrave, who outlined the case to the Royal Court on Tuesday, described Jalam as an ‘impulsive and dangerous person’ who poses a threat of serious sexual harm to young women.
Due to that risk, Advocate Redgrave asked the court to make an order which would have barred Jalam from approaching or initiating physical contact with a lone female in a public place during the hours of darkness following his release from prison.
However, the court, which issued an eight-year restraining order preventing Jalam from contacting his victim, said the order – which would have been the first order of its kind to be issued in Jersey – was not ‘appropriate’.
GOOD laws and sensible policy are rarely made in the throes of knee-jerk responses to extreme events.
The misuse of anti-terror laws rushed in by Tony Blair’s government by various arms of the state, including local UK councils, stands as a reminder to always be mindful of unintended consequences.
And yet the argument made by Deputy Jackie Hilton today, following the jailing of a violent sexual predator, carries considerable weight.
As reported on the front-page of Wednesday’s JEP, Anthony Jalam, an unskilled labourer who moved to Jersey in 2014, was sent down for four-and-a-half years on Tuesday for a ‘brutal’ and sustained sex attack on a 22-year-old woman whom he met on a night out.
It has now emerged that he was heavily involved in crime in his home town of Rotherham and fled to Jersey because of a credible threat to his life.
It seems hard to believe that, given his appalling criminal record, these threats did not stem from connections made during a life of crime.
Whatever the truth, this is not someone anyone wants to see living in Jersey.
Deputy Hilton raised the same concerns about unrestricted immigration following the murder in 2004 of Tracy Burns, a nursery nurse who was sexually abused and killed by Paul Greenan.
When he appeared before the Royal Court, Greenan’s advocate said that he had moved from Northern Ireland because he was at risk of severe punishment beatings at the hands of paramilitaries – who, it was said, acted as a vigilante police force on the estate where he lived and were tired of his criminal activities.
In that case, police officers had been aware of him entering Jersey but were powerless to stop him, even though there was a warrant for his arrest in Ulster.
We cannot wait for another tragic death before this issue receives the attention it so clearly merits.
We live in a Europe in which the free movement of people is prized more highly than the protection of a community from those who pose a very significant threat.
Are we really as powerless to police our borders to protect women as they walk home from a night out as has always been suggested?
This is not a question of economic migration, but it makes clear once again that a proper debate about population is desperately needed to establish coherent and workable policy.
