Lesbian Jamaican drug dealer fights deportation

A Jamaican drug dealer is appealing a deportation order on the basis that it infringes on her human rights because she is a lesbian, according to a report on www.telegraph.co.uk.



The woman, named only as \'A\' for legal reasons, was convicted in 2005 of conspiracy to supply class A drugs and sent to prison, where she had a string of lesbian relationships with fellow inmates.



However, immigration officials say that despite the woman, from the Clapton area of east London, having previous homosexual affairs, her current claim that she is in love with another woman is no more than a ruse to remain in the United Kingdom (UK).



Carine Patry Hoskins, representing the Home Office at London\'s Court of Appeal, said it was little surprise that \'A\' had been a lesbian when in prison.



\"If she wanted to be sexually active, there was no other option,\" she said. \"There was no other choice but celibacy.\"



However, she pointed out that \'A\' had previously had heterosexual relationships and that it was a former boyfriend who introduced her to drugs.



She alleged her new relationship was in fact \"part and parcel of a campaign to be allowed to stay in the UK\".



However S. Chelvan, for \'A\', said that she was a lesbian and was in danger of persecution should she be returned to Jamaica.



The court heard that \'A\', now 24, met the woman she says she loves while they were both serving time at HMP Downview, in Surrey.



Mr Chelvan said his client was \"lost and frightened\" when she left Jamaica as a teenager, but is now more confident about who she is, and has had at least six lesbian lovers.



She is in danger of being killed by criminal gangs in Jamaica if she returns home, he added, arguing that one of her co-accused in the drug offences has said she will tell people on the island about her lesbianism.



He insisted that her right to freedom of expression, right to a private life, right to life and right not to be discriminated against, all enshrined by the European Convention of Human Rights, will be violated if she is deported.