A Sri Lankan sex offender has been allowed to remain in Britain because of his “right to family life” with his two young children, even though they are about to be adopted.

Judges ruled that Vincent Gnanasiri Cyril had proved a human rights case to avoid being deported – and that it was “entirely legitimate” for him to stay here even though the children will have no contact with him when they are placed with a new family.

Campaigners said Cyril’s case showed how Labour’s Human Rights Act had “warped the moral compass of our justice system” and “piles farce on top of tragedy”.

Cyril, 44, a Sri Lankan who arrived in Britain as an illegal immigrant in 1998, was jailed for 12 months in February 2007 after going on a spree of sexual assaults.

He indecently assaulted three women and a man when he was “very drunk”, the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber said.

His crime meant that he was liable for “automatic deportation” under rules which state that any foreign national jailed for 12 months or more must be considered for removal from Britain.

The offender was forbidden from returning to the family home after he was released from jail in July 2007.

But he maintained contact with his family and in early 2009 was allowed to move back into the family home in Hull with his wife, known as ‘N’, and their two daughters, known only as ‘C’ and ‘V’, who were born in 2004 and 2008.

In early 2011 the children had to be taken into emergency police protection because of the effect their mother’s mental health was having on her ability to care for them.

Although the children were later returned to N, the police had to take them into protection in September 2011, due to N’s “irrational behaviour”.

In a care hearing for the children, Judge Jeremy Baker QC heard that Cyril had been “consuming alcohol to excess whilst living at the family home, and failed to comply with the local authority’s requests for assistance when his wife was struggling to cope”.

The local authority opposed the girls being placed into foster care and, after an appeal, successfully argued they should be adopted.

Dominic Raab, the Conservative MP campaigning to reform human rights laws, said: “The idea that a sex offender, too drunk to look after his kids, can turn round and claim his right to family life piles farce on top of tragedy.” – The Telegraph