A judge questioned Government policy yesterday after he heard how a bogus asylum seeker committed a series of armed robberies following his early release from jail.

Recorder Shamim Qureshi, one of the first Muslim judges, said Klodjan Mila, 19, from Kosovo, would not have been able to hold up five bookmakers if he had been in custody "as he ought to have been".

Mr Qureshi, 46, who grew up in Kashmir, jailed Mila for 10 years and recommended that he be deported when his sentence was completed.

advertisementHowever, he said there was now "little faith" from the public that deportation orders would be carried out.

Gloucester Crown court was told that Mila committed the crimes, armed with a "Rambo-style knife" after being freed four weeks into a four-month sentence.

The recorder said Mila and his co-defendant Vladimir Hysa, 21, also from Kosovo, were desperate men.

Hysa, who took part in two of the five robberies, was jailed for seven years.

The pair had been illegal economic migrants in Britain since 2001.