BUT ESPECIALLY FOR GRIEVING FATHERS....

I`ll probably get in a bit of bother about this but now and then I hear things or read things that resonate with me as a father, a grandfather and, I hope, by and large a decent human being.  One such `event` occurred today and I don`t think I can do any better than to set out the text of a PA report that was issued at lunchtime.   It goes like this:-

`A failed asylum-seeker who left a 12-year-old girl dying under the wheels of his car while banned from driving will be allowed to remain in the UK, judges have ruled.  Mohammed Ibrahim, 33, an Iraqi Kurd, was already banned from driving when he ran off, leaving Amy Houston trapped under his Rover car.

Amy`s father, Paul Houston, 41, from Darwen, Lancashire, begged judges at a recent deportation hearing to bring "my seven years of hell to an end" by sending Ibrahim back to Iraq.  Mr Houston was left to make the decision to turn off Amy's life support machine hours after the crash in Blackburn, Lancs, in November 2003. He has since campaigned to get Ibrahim deported in a tortuous legal battle spanning seven years.

Last month he handed in a letter to judges, containing an impassioned plea asking for Ibrahim to be deported.  The Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber sitting in Manchester also heard Ibrahim, given leave to remain in the UK, had a string of criminal convictions.

Ibrahim's lawyers argued that his human rights would be impinged if he was sent back to Iraq. The lawyers claimed human rights laws permitted him to remain in the country, as his right to life and to family life trumped attempts to return him to his native Iraq.   And two senior immigration judges rejected a final appeal by the UK Border Agency to have him deported. Ibrahim will now be allowed to live in the UK permanently.

Mr Houston said he was "frustrated and angry" at the decision.  He said: "How can he say he's deprived of his right to a family life? The only person deprived of a family life is me. Amy was my only family."

I`m not sure the above calls for any real comment from me, for the conclusion reached by any `ordinary` decent person is obvious so I will confine myself to suggest that Human Rights, like political correctness and our old friends health and safety, have now gone too far and it`s time we put the twin virtues of common sense and common decency towards out fellow countrymen once more at the forefront of our consideration.