The brothers of victims murdered by two illegal immigrants have attacked the Home Office for losing track of the killers before they struck.
South African natives Gabriel Bhengu, aged 27, and Jabu Mbowane, aged 26, should not have been in the country when they attacked and killed Andrew Owen in April of last year.
The pair had murdered Telford man Neil Williams ten days earlier.
Speaking after they were jailed for life to serve a minimum of thirty years, Mr Owen’s brother Chris revealed he had met immigration officials but said they did not apologise for the blunder.
Mr Owen, aged 41, of Weston Drive, Bilston, said he was shocked by their response at the meeting in West Bromwich last month.
“I asked them why they didn’t deport them and they said: ‘There’s millions of illegal immigrants out there’.
“I think the system stinks. If the immigration people were doing their jobs properly, these things wouldn’t be happening,” he said.
Mr Owen’s wife Kerry added: “Saying things like there are millions of others out there, how is that a consolation? That’s not what you want to hear.
“The whole meeting was a waste of time, it was like rubbing salt in the wounds.”
Bhengu and Mbowane both arrived in Britain legally on short-term tourist working visas but the permits had run out by the time they embarked on a violent robbery campaign across the Black Country and Shropshire.
At Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday they were told they would spend at least 30 years in prison after being convicted of the murders of Mr Williams and Mr Owen.
The brother of Neil Williams said after the hearing : “They shouldn’t have been in the country.
“There were one or two times when they came to notice but they didn’t get deported.”
Bhengu was also found guilty of five robberies and Mbowane of four charges of robbery. Judge Mr Justice Goldring recommended they should be deported after serving their sentences.
The Home Office said last year it deported more than one person every eight minutes.
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