Man under threat of deportation to Jamaica wins right to rejoin his British family

Mark Nelson released from immigration detention on bail after lawyers challenge decision to remove him A Jamaican man who has lived more than half his life in the UK and was facing imminent deportation has been allowed to reunite with his British family after a legal challenge. Mark Nelson, 47, came to the UK in 2000 and later set up his own car-mechanic business. He has five British children and a British partner. He faced deportation in 2022 after serving a four-year prison sentence for possession with intent to supply a class B drug, abstracting electricity and two offences of racially aggravated intentional harassment. He had not committed any further offences. The deportation was later cancelled and instead he was tagged and told to report weekly at a Home Office centre. But last month – almost 10 years after his original conviction – Nelson was arrested, detained and told that the government again planned to deport him to Jamaica. The Home Office gave him a ticket for a flight on 7 August, but after reading about his case in the Guardian, lawyers offered to represent him pro bono to challenge his deportation. After they made an 11th-hour application for a judicial review the