Judge criticised over immigration comments

Sentencing a Jamaican drug dealer to two years in prison, Judge Ian Trigger said at Liverpool Crown Court there were hundreds of thousands of people like him exploiting the UK's "generous welfare benefits".

But yesterday Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge said his comments were "wholly unrelated" to the case he was considering.

Lucien McClearley arrived in the country on a tourist visa in 2001, but was living illegally in Merseyside after it expired. He was arrested in October 2002 when the visa ran out but claimed asylum and was released while it was being processed.

The application was rejected in 2004, but he was arrested last February after police stopped a car he was driving and noticed it smelled of cannabis.

McClearley was jailed for two years on July 28 last year. Sentencing him, Judge Trigger said: "Your case illustrates all too clearly the completely lax immigration policy that exists and has existed over recent years.

"People like you, and there are literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people like you, come to these shores to avail themselves of the generous welfare benefits that exist here.

"In the past 10 years the national debt of this country has risen to extraordinary heights, largely because central government has wasted billions of pounds. Much of that has been wasted on welfare payments."