Batemans Bay man facing deportation launches appeal in Federal Court 19 February 2019 Batemans Bay man David Degning in happier days. He will appeal his deportation before the Federal Court on Monday.  An East Coast Radio exclusive this morning. A 57-year-old Batemans Bay man facing deportation to the United Kingdom, will appeal to the Federal Court in Sydney, on Monday.  David Degning has been in detention at Villawood in Sydney for over a year, and will ask three judges of the Federal Court, including the Chief Justice James Allsop, to allow him to have the case reviewed. The appeal comes at a time when the Department of Home Affairs is under scrutiny for handing back cancelled visas to a number of convicted criminals facing deportation.

Mr Degning was taken away in handcuffs by 16 Border Force officers, in a dawn raid on his Sunshine Bay family home, on the 25th of January, last year. Under section 501 of the Migration Act his permanent resident’s visa had been cancelled by the Federal Government, on the grounds of not being of good character. A painter by trade, he had been a resident of Batemans Bay for 30 years, and been in Australia for 50 years. His family were Ten Pound Poms. Mr Degning has been charged a number of times over his life for drink-driving, when he was 21 he was convicted of theft and spent three months in jail, there were also drug offences. In 2009, while he was estranged from his wife, he was charged with having intercourse with a 17-year-old girl of limited intelligence, or cognitive impairment, as the charge read. Mr Degning pleaded guilty to the offence and told police he believed the sex had been consensual and that he hadn’t assaulted or hurt the girl, and had thought she was normal, although maybe a little slow.  In 2013 the judge found the offence on the lower end of the scale and that Mr Degning was unlikely to re-offend, and sentenced him to a 17-month suspended sentence and placed him on a good behaviour bond.

Source © 2EC