THE man responsible for one of the county’s worst crimes in recent years cannot be deported from the UK despite still being assessed as a “serious threat”, immigration judges have ruled.

Jan Ometak believed he was battling a “supernatural beast” when he bit off and swallowed part of a pensioner’s thumb then ripped flesh from the victim’s face and body with his teeth after smashing his way into a house at Lyonshall late at night in 2006.

Ometak, a Slovakian national, was cleared of attempted murder at Hereford Crown Court by a jury that determined him to be insane.

The judge ordered Ometak to be detained for treatment in a secure hospital until a mental health review tribunal or the Home Secretary could authorise him as fit for release.

Now a special immigration tribunal ruled that – despite concerns over the “genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat” Ometak still posed – he could not be sent back to Slovakia.

  • More on this story in this week’s Hereford Times .