A drug addict homeless Kosovan with a ‘terrible offending history’ has avoided being deported after a judge accepted she would face difficulties if returned to her native country.
Serial criminal Barbara Osmanovic, 40, who has been convicted 13 times for 29 separate offences, was granted the right to remain in the UK on human rights grounds after a judge ruled she was ‘culturally and socially integrated’ into the country.
The heroin and cocaine addict of Roma heritage arrived in the UK as a child in 2000 with her family and was granted leave to remain in 2006.
Her offending began ‘almost immediately’, an immigration tribunal heard.
There is no evidence that Osmanovic, who is said to have worked in cleaning roles in Birmingham and Manchester at Poundland, B&M and Manchester City Stadium, some only lasting for a few days, has made a ‘positive contribution’ to life in the UK, the tribunal was told.
In April 2023, she was jailed for two and a half years in Manchester for theft, fraud, attempted burglary and possession of a knife.
She was described as undertaking a ‘mean’ campaign to steal cash from vulnerable and disabled people.
In one instance, she approached a woman in a wheelchair before stealing her purse, a photo of her parents and spending £1,640 on her card.
Barbara Osmanovic, 40, who has been convicted 13 times for 29 separate offences, was granted the right to remain in the UK
The Home Office tried to deport her because of her persistent offending in 2023 but an immigration tribunal declared she should remain in the country and an appeal from the Home Office was rejected.
It ruled that deporting her would be ‘unduly harsh’ under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights because she was culturally integrated into the UK and would struggle in Kosovo.
The criminal does not speak Albanian, lacked any meaningful support network and would have difficulty obtaining documentation that would allow her to access healthcare, a tribunal heard.
The judge ruled it would be unfair to deport her because she would likely be homeless and as a Roma woman with deformed feet and mental health problems, she was likely to ‘face significant difficulties obtaining the documentation necessary to reside lawfully and access healthcare’.
They also said it would be ‘too soon’ to determine if she was no longer a persistent offender and ‘despite her criminality and chaotic lifestyle’, she is ‘socially and culturally integrated into the UK’.
The Kosovan did not attend her appeal because she did not have a working phone and her solicitors were unable to contact her.
As well as stealing from a disabled woman, she stole a purse from an elderly woman who was shopping at Marks and Spencer’s.
She also tried to break into another woman’s house and on another occasion was found carrying a knife when searched in a car park in a Premier Inn.
Her lawyer in 2023 said she had a ‘sorry history of offending’ and that the ‘meanest’ offences of theft and fraud were as a result of her reliance on class A drugs.
