Expulsion for home invasion robbery

Case no. 243/2014
Judgment delivered on 21 April 2015.

The Public Prosecutor
vs.
T

The case concerned expulsion of the 41-year-old Croatian citizen, T, who was born in Denmark and had lived here for most of his life.

T had over a number of years been given 30 suspended and unsuspended sentences of a total of approx. 20 years in prison and had served approx. 12 years before this case. His previous convictions were for, among other things, robbery, aggravated violence and theft, and a number of these robberies and thefts had been committed against elderly people in their homes. Most recently, T had been sentenced to five years in prison for, among other things, attempted aggravated robbery in the form of a home invasion robbery against an elderly man committed with T's brother.

T's mother and siblings lived in Denmark, and he had attended primary and lower secondary school here, but had no other education. T had never had any attachment to the Danish labour market and had received cash benefits during all of his adult life. T was unofficially married to a Romanian woman and had a five-year-old child with her. He spoke Danish and Romani. His brother, who was also convicted in this case, had been expelled to Croatia.

Referring to the severity of T's offences, the severity and extent of his previous offences, his failure to integrate into Danish society and the fact that he had certain ties with Croatia through his expelled brother, the Supreme Court held that expelling him would not be in contravention of Denmark's international obligations under the EU Directive on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States and the European Human Rights Convention, regardless of whether he was born and raised here and had his mother and siblings here.

Against this background, the Supreme Court affirmed the High Court's expulsion of T.