London - Sex attacker Aliou Bah was given £110 000 (about R1.8 million) compensation for being locked up for 21 months after his own country refused to take him back.
Making the award, Judge Nicholas Madge said he ‘wholeheartedly’ agreed that many would think his victims should get payouts instead.
Bah came to the UK in 2007 from Guinea to join his refugee father. Four years later, he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl and was jailed for 18 months.
He was also jailed for two years for another sexual assault three years later.
But last year, the High Court ruled Bah, 28, was held unlawfully as there was little prospect of deporting him.
Officials in Guinea had refused to process his case and another obstacle was that Bah had been granted permission to stay in the UK as a refugee.