Headmaster's killer wins right to stay in UK

The killer of headmaster Philip Lawrence has won an appeal to stay in Britain on the grounds that deportation would breach his human rights, the government said yesterday.

Italian-born Learco Chindamo, 26, was jailed for at least 12 years in 1996 for the murder of the 48-year-old teacher outside a west London school.

Mr Chindamo's lawyers challenged a government attempt to deport him to Italy after he finishes his sentence under the human rights laws.

Mr Lawrence's widow Frances said the ruling ignored her family's rights.

"I am unutterably depressed that the Human Rights Act has failed to encompass the rights of my family," she told the BBC. "I feel as if I can't fight any more - I feel I can't survive this."

The decision by the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal is a blow to the government, which has pledged to deport freed foreign prisoners.

It emerged last year that more than 1,000 foreign prisoners had been freed from jails and allowed to stay in the country when they should have been considered for deportation.

The Home Office said in a statement: "We are disappointed that the courts have not upheld our decision to pursue deportation in this case.

"We believe that foreign prisoners who have committed serious crimes should face automatic deportation from the UK at the end of their sentence."

Conservative Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said the ruling exposed the "clumsy incompetence of the government's human rights legislation".

Mr Lawrence's death shocked people across the country and even the Queen made a rare public donation to a fund set up in his memory.