First-tier Tribunal upholds deportation of Romanian national convicted of blackmail and shoplifting

A Romanian national with pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme has lost his appeal against deportation, after the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) found that his pattern of offending in two countries outweighed his family connections in the UK.

In Muza v Secretary of State for the Home Department (DA/00026/2025), heard at Taylor House on 20 August 2026, Judge Mulready dismissed the appeal of Remus Mihai Muza against a deportation order made under the Immigration (EEA) Regulations 2016. The appellant did not attend the hearing, and his solicitors had come off record in June 2026. Having confirmed that notice of the hearing had reached his last known address, the judge proceeded in his absence.

Mr Muza was granted limited leave under Appendix EU in September 2020. In September 2023 he was convicted at the Court of Milan of attempted blackmail, arising from conduct in Italy in December 2019, and received a two-year custodial sentence and a fine. In December 2024, he was convicted in the UK of six counts of shoplifting and one of battery, receiving an eighteen-month suspended sentence. A notice of liability to deportation followed in January 2025, with the deportation order made in March that year.

Three issues fell for determination: whether deportation was justified on public policy grounds under regulation 23(6)(b) of the 2016 Regulations; whether Exception 1 in section 117C(4) of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 applied; and whether there were very compelling circumstances sufficient to render deportation disproportionate under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

On the first issue, the judge noted that the appellant had failed to declare his Italian conviction when applying under the EU Settlement Scheme, and had also received a police caution for shoplifting in 2024. Evidence of rehabilitation was described as thin, consisting largely of stated remorse and a relatively short period without further offending, with no detail as to the appellant's current circumstances, employment or other activities. The tribunal concluded that a genuine, present and sufficiently serious risk of reoffending remained.

Exception 1 was found not to apply, since the appellant's only established period of lawful residence ran from 2020 to 2025, falling well short of "most of his life" as required by the statute.

On the question of very compelling circumstances, the judge applied the framework set out by the Supreme Court in HA (Iraq) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] UKSC 22, weighing the Unuane factors against the public interest in deportation. The judge accepted that the appellant had family in the UK and had acquired cultural familiarity with the country, but found the evidence of his relationships with relatives to be sparse, and there was no medical evidence supporting claimed mental health consequences for him or his family. By contrast, the appellant retained fluency in Romanian and cultural ties to Romania sufficient to support his reintegration there. The absence of evidence of financial independence also weighed against him under section 117B.

Concluding that the factors advanced were insufficient to outweigh the public interest in deportation, the tribunal dismissed the appeal and made no fee award.