Judge attacks 'chaotic' asylum system

A judge branded the British asylum system "chaotic" as he jailed a solicitor who for five years concocted bogus stories for desperate refugees.

Titus Miranda was the legal link for Chinese "Snakeheads", a ruthless gang of people traffickers who preyed on those yearning to live in the west.

Miranda masterminded a "factory of falsehoods" for clients, presenting a false picture of religious persecution and state harassment.

Sentencing Miranda, Judge Henry Blacksell QC said: "You have been convicted by a jury of this offence along with your co-defendants on what must be considered the most overwhelming evidence. What this investigation uncovered was a wholesale abuse of the asylum system."

He added: "It was never an answer to say that the asylum system was chaotic, which it patently is. It was never an answer to say that the Chinese witnesses were prepared to deceive in order to stay in the country."

The judge described the people trafficking gangs as "organised and sophisticated criminals who exploited those people for large amounts of money."

He said: "However, when they got here (Britain) they were directed by your firm. You ran that business and you were responsible for that business and you controlled what went on."

Miranda, 57, from Holy Avenue, Harrow, north west London, was unanimously convicted by the jury of one count of conspiring with others to defraud the Home Office between January 1999, and March 2002. His common law wife Jessica Jin, 23, of the same address, was convicted of the same offence and sentenced to two years in prison. Her lawyer, Lorraine Webb said her client was suicidal and asked that she be put on suicide watch.

Another defendant, Long Lee, of Newmarsh Road, Thamesmead, south east London, was convicted of the same offence and he was jailed for five years. The 32-year-old, himself an asylum seeker who had not been present during the proceedings, was recommended for deportation by the judge.

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