Dressed in her sparkling white communion veil, grinning shyly for the camera, Amy ­Houston looked a picture of purity and ­innocence in photographs taken when she was 12 years old. Today, little Amy should be a ­contented young woman. Instead, in the words of her devastated father Paul, she was left to ‘die like a dog’ in the street after being knocked down by Mohammed Ibrahim, a serial ­criminal and failed asylum seeker, who was driving while supposedly banned from the road.

After taking Amy’s life, ­Ibrahim — an Iraqi Kurd who, after killing Amy, allegedly married a woman and had two children by her — committed a series of further crimes, including ­burglary, theft, harassment and yet more driving offences. Once he was captured, Amy’s family had every right to expect that this vile man would be punished and then ejected from the country.  Deporting him back to Iraq — a country where British soldiers died to help make safe — was the least ­punishment he deserved.