The valiant and the vile

One is a predatory paedophile described as a persistent threat to young boys.

The other is a Gurkha hero wounded while fighting in the Falklands War. No prizes for guessing which of these two men was accepted to start a new life in Britain yesterday.


The valiant and the vile: Hero Gyanendra Rai (left) is barred from Britain
while paedophile Raymond Horne has started a new life here


The paedophile: Raymond Horne hides
under a towel as he arrives in the UK


Valiant: Gyanendra Rai displays his wound
from fighting in the Falkands War

Raymond Horne, 61, has been deported from Australia, where he has lived since the age of five, after a long line of sex offences against children.

He will now be free to roam the country at the taxpayers' expense having served his prison sentence abroad.

Horne is Australian in everything but passport, having left Kent with his parents and four siblings as a five-year-old in the early 1950s. But he did not change his nationality, which enabled the Australian government to declare him an "unlawful citizen" and throw him out.

The British authorities had no option but to take him back.

In stark contrast is the case of Gyanendra Rai, 52, who remains partially paralysed after his back was torn open by an Argentine shell in 1982.

He was awarded the South Atlantic Medal for his courage, yet Britain will not pay him a proper pension to fund medical treatment in Nepal – or even give him the NHS care he deserves for the horrendous injuries that nearly killed him.

Demands are growing for the Government to end the iniquity which means Gurkhas who risked their lives serving the Crown are barred from settling in this country.

And the unfairness of the system could hardly have been highlighted more plainly than by the arrival of Raymond Horne at Heathrow early yesterday.

Back in Brisbane, no one is in any doubt that British children will now be in danger from Horne. But he is likely to be provided with a home paid for with housing benefit, given help to find a job – and even given special protection.

Horne is expected to be made the subject of sexual offences prevention order, which applies to an offender convicted overseas who poses a risk of serious sexual harm in the UK.

It can prohibit him from being alone with children or from being within a certain distance of a playground, for example.

But he is not kept under constant supervision, and authorities in the field of child abuse say the move to have him repatriated where he has no family or network of friends could have devastating consequences for vulnerable youngsters who may cross his path.

Even his prison doctor, Wendell Rosevear, who supervised him during his 12-year sentence for raping two teenage boys, said: "The risk of paedophiles re-offending is known to increase after deportation, due to heightened anxiety. I fear that British children will be at risk after he settles into the wider community."

Professor Freda Biggs, of the Australian group Advocates for Survivors of Child Abuse, added: "There are child-sex offenders who should never be released – and he's one of them.

"I'm delighted there's one less paedophile in the country. But someone's child, somewhere, is going to pay for this."

Around 4.30am yesterday, Horne stepped off a Cathay Pacific flight from Brisbane flanked by four Australian police officers. He hid his face with a blanket but his full, white beard was clearly visible.

Representatives from agencies tasked with monitoring him spent yesterday making sure arrangements were in place for his supervision. But he is under no legal obligation to co-operate with them because he is not subject to parole.

Horne is part of the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) scheme, which means he is monitored and supported by several agencies – paid for with taxpayers' money.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "Normally when sex offenders are released, they are on licence and can have conditions attached to this, such as to live in a certain address or be banned from certain areas.

"In a situation where a sex offender returns from a foreign country, this does not exist, so there are no legal requirements to adhere to.

"Initially part of the risk management would be to put together a plan that the offender will comply with. But if they decided the best thing would be for the offender to live in a certain place, for example, then there would be no way of making him do that."

One of the first things Horne will be encouraged to do is change his name and alter his distinctive appearance, which has been likened to Father Christmas.

There are concerns that his white hair and beard, coupled with his Australian accent, mean he is easily identifiable and therefore vulnerable to vigilante attacks.

Around 10am yesterday, he signed the sex offender register at Uxbridge Magistrates' Court in West London, although he did not appear in the court building.

During a five-minute hearing, magistrate Pam Blewett ruled that Horne should be placed on the register indefinitely.

Outside court, Detective Inspector Carole Kinley-Smith said: "Our first priority is to make sure there are no more victims. We have responded immediately to obtain this order and reduce the risk of reoffending.

"If we did not do this the next we knew about him could be when we heard about his latest victim."

Moments after the hearing ended, a man believed to be Horne was spotted being driven away in the back of a police car, hiding under a blanket. It is not known where he will live but it is expected that he will be offered accommodation in a bail hostel or similar unit.

Horne was released from Woolsten Correctional Centre in Brisbane after serving his sentence for 14 serious sex offences on two homeless boys he lured to his apartment.

Jailing him in 1996, the judge called him "a persistent sex offender who preyed upon young, vulnerable boys".

The ease with which the Australian government is able to rid the country of unwanted residents is in stark contrast to the system in the UK.

The killer of headmaster Philip Lawrence, Italian-born Learco Chindamo, 26, has successfully appealed against deportation arguing that it would breach his human rights, much to the despair of Mr Lawrence's widow Frances.

Like Horne, Chindamo also left his birth country at the age of five. He argued before the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal that the Home Office's intention to deport him when he is released from prison was unfair because his entire life was in the UK.

Conservative MP Philip Davies said: "It just goes to show the misguided and perverse priorities of this Government when they allow a paedophile who has committed appalling crimes into the country without any problem, but people like the Gurkhas who have served this country honourably and bravely are being refused entry.

"Most right-thinking, decent people would find that appalling."

Horne, who was born in Hammersmith, West London, left for Australia with his mother, two sisters and two brothers in 1951 on the P&O passenger ship Mooltan.

By the age of 21, he was already a repeat offender with convictions for assault, drug and sex offences.

'The nightmares still haunt me'
Gyanendra Rai

Gyanendra Rai is insistent that he and the other Gurkha veterans are not looking for handouts.

"I do not want to take anything from a country which I love and fought for," he says.

However, fighting for Britain took a terrible toll on Mr Rai. His back was torn open by an Argentine shell in the Falklands War.

He cannot afford to pay for medication in Nepal, where he is currently living, and he is not allowed into this country to have his battle injuries treated.

Mr Rai, 52, was refused a visa and he is currently acting as a test case for all Gurkha veterans before the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal.

He said: "I applied to live in the UK so that I could get medical treatment for my wounds and to help stop the nightmares which I still suffer as a result of the horrors I saw in the Falklands. It would be a great honour for me to live and work hard amongst the British people."

The veteran served in the Gurkha Brigade for 13 years – two years short of the minimum needed for an army pension – and came under attack at Bluff Cove in June 1982.

He is still partially paralysed. The father of five, who was awarded the South Atlantic Medal, was forced to return to Nepal without any income.

When his wife suffered a complication in childbirth he carried her in a basket on his back for six hours in a desperate attempt to get treatment.

She died before he could reach a hospital. He said: "My heart was broken but I could not give up, as I had to support my young children.

"I now scrape a living in Nepal, and I am humiliated by having to borrow money from loan sharks."