- Asylum seeker Anicet Mayela denied request to change guilty plea
- Mayela previously halted deportation; sentenced in November
- Assaulted a 15-year-old; claimed insufficient legal assistance
A failed asylum seeker who assaulted a 15-year-old girl after his deportation was halted by cabin staff has been informed that he cannot change his plea to not guilty.
Anicet Mayela, 40, once protested outside a detention center with a sign reading migrants are not criminals, guilty of the December 2018 attack at Oxford Crown Court in April.
The Congolese national appeared in the same court on Thursday to amend his guilty plea, claiming he did not get sufficient legal assistance.
However, Judge Nigel Daly denied his request, stating that Mayela had entered an ‘unequivocal plea of guilty’ at the last hearing and that he could see no cause to vacate’.
‘From the minute he was arrested, he was determined to plead guilty. I will not accept the vacating of his plea,’ Judge Daly stated.
Mayela from Oxford was joined in the dock by a French interpreter, and other family members witnessed the brief hearing from the public gallery.
Following his court appearance earlier this year, The Sun reported that many fruitless attempts had been made to remove him from the UK before he was granted permission to remain in the nation.
It is understood that the Home Office first denied Mayela’s asylum plea in 2004, but he successfully contested the decision in court and was granted leave to remain on appeal in 2010.
Mayela was imprisoned at Campsfield House Detention Centre in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, where he was later photographed with a ‘stop detention’ placard after being released.
A deportation flight was originally scheduled for May 2005, but it was thwarted by Air France staff who stopped the airplane from taking departure from Southampton.
The cabin crew’s involvement came after reports that Mayela’s hand had been broken by deportation guards who shackled his wrists and taped his legs together.
Weeks later, Mayela obtained leave to remain after lawyers argued that deportation would violate his human rights, while police investigated the handlers for alleged assault.
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He was released two days later and joined a campaign to close Campsfield House, where he had been held.
According to an article released by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) in 2005, he received three removal warnings from the UK.
According to the IRR study, Mayela paid an agent to assist him depart his native country in 2004 because his life was in danger, and he originally stayed in Plymouth while his asylum claim was being reviewed.
However, this was refused, and his initial appeal was dismissed by the courts later that year.
By 2005, he was being held in immigration detention centers while deportation proceedings were underway, but he was eventually released.
Mayela, who is known to be a former economics student, also appears to have backed protests outside detention centers that year.
The judge stated that when he is sentenced on November 14, he could expect to spend time in jail.
