HE'S an illegal immigrant who has used other people's bank details 46 times to buy everything from mobile phones to booze and groceries.

He's been jailed for 15 months for his crimes, and the Home Office has served a deportation notice on him. But still Nigerian Teslim Raji will not be sent back to his country of birth when released.

The Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman, said he would not make a recommendation for Raji's deportation. The reason? "Even if I did, I would have no confidence that anyone would take any notice of it."

What an indictment. A senior judge will not order the deportation of an illegal immigrant who has committed crimes in this country because he doesn't think the authorities would act on that order.

Britain's immigration system is in chaos. The scandal over more than 1,000 foreign inmates released from prison without being considered for deportation cost Charles Clarke his job. But things have not improved since, despite new Home Secretary John Reid's pledge that there will be no more "cock-ups".

This week Dave Roberts, the senior immigration service enforcer whose job it is to keep tabs on foreign nationals whose applications to live in this country are turned down, admitted he had "not the faintest idea" how many people were in Britain illegally.

This is a systemic failure that has revealed the extent of the bungling and incompetence at the heart of Government.

We are not going to call for Raji to be deported. He is not a murderer, or a rapist. He has lived in this country since the age of 16, and his crimes are not of the most serious.

But Judge Hoffman's decision demonstrates that it is not only the man in the street who is fed up about Government's inability to deal properly with foreign criminals. Our judges are too. What a shambles.

Updated: 10:40 Monday, May 22, 2006