A Nigerian man jailed for arranging sham marriages to win foreign nationals legal status in Northern Ireland has launched a last-ditch legal bid to avoid deportation.
Alexander Success is seeking to judicially review a decision that he should be returned to his home country having completed a four-year sentence.
Lawyers for the 32-year-old told the High Court the order should be revoked due to the family unit he has formed with a partner and their son in Londonderry.
Success was jailed on a series of illegal immigration charges linked to bogus marriages in the North West.
The suspect weddings involved Nigerians and Chinese to local people so the immigrants could then use the certificates to apply to stay in Northern Ireland.
Success admitted assisting entry to an EU state, with his lawyer claiming at trial that he got involved to pay his university fees.
Blank marriage papers and diary details of £4,000 earnings for organising weddings were said to have been found at his Waterfoot Park home in Derry.
Following his release in 2008 he failed in appeals against a deportation order served on him.
But a judge has now been urged to overturn the notice, partly on the basis of his right to family life.
The High Court was told Success came to the UK in 1999 and received residency status after marrying an Irish woman three years later.
Following their break-up he then formed a relationship with his current partner.
Success now has three children - two at locations in Northern Ireland and another now in England, the court heard.
Mr Justice Weatherup, who reserved judgment in the case, outlined the conflicting issues he must now weigh up.
"You have got that family setting, and you set that against (the fact) he has committed offences and is liable to deportation.
"There is a balance - whether you allow him to stay for family reasons or you deport him for his record."
© UTV News