Ben James: "How can I go back to a place I don't know?"

Commodities broker Ben James, from Dulwich in south London, lost a Court of Appeal battle to block his removal to Nigeria and is planning a last-ditch plea to Home Secretary Jack Straw to show compassion and not deport him.

Mr James, who has received backing from Health Minister Tessa Jowell, says he faces the loss of his business, his home and the jobs he has created for others.

He said he was extremely afraid: "They could now arrest me and put me on a plane to Nigeria, a place where I don't know anybody, have no friends or family and don't speak the language."

Lost contact

Mr James, 29, was sent to Britain to attend private school aged 14, but his family stopped sending money and he eventually lost contact and began making his own way in the world.

He fell foul of the immigration authorities when he failed to regularise his position after overstaying his permission to live in the UK as a student, which expired in 1986.

His case only came to light when he approached the Home Office himself to try to right matters and found himself embroiled in a seven-year legal battle.

'Hoping for compassion'

Mr James said: "What I am hoping for is that the home secretary will show a little compassion at the end of the day.

"One wonders what the definition of compassion is. I didn't choose to be left here as a child, nor have I committed any crime.

"But I've paid my taxes and employed other people in my business. What more could you ask?"

Jowell: Mr James's case "tragic"

On Monday appeal judges Lord Justice Roch and Lord Justice Waller rejected his application for leave to seek judicial review. They upheld a High Court ruling that he did not have an arguable case.

Mr James wanted a review of the home secretary's decision not to grant him indefinite leave to remain in the UK and his decision to confirm a deportation order signed in 1994.

Dismissing the application, Lord Justice Roch said the home secretary had been entitled to decide last July that the 15 years Mr James had spent building his life in Britain did not outweigh the need for "effective immigration control".

Lord Justice Roch stressed that Mr James, whose original name was Olawale Babatayo when he first arrived in the UK in February 1983, had only lawfully been in the country "in total" for three years, until February 1986, when permission to remain as a student expired.

He had made no further attempt to regularise his position until 1991, when he began his battle to remain in the country under the immigration and asylum laws, and he was therefore not entitled to rely on long-term residence as a valid ground for being allowed to stay.

Legal challenge

Mr James's solicitor, Tiki Emezie, said further representations would now be made to the Home Office on compassionate grounds and the fact that his client's circumstances had changed since the original deportation order was made.

A new legal challenge could be launched, based on the home secretary's response to those representations, if they were unsuccessful, Mr Emezie said.

Mr James started out on his own at the age of 15, taking a number of jobs, and obtaining a false National Insurance number. He then changed his name and embarked on his career, first as a freelance pensions adviser and then as a commodities broker earning more than £40,000 a year.

Later Mr James's constituency MP Tessa Jowell described his case as "tragic" and pledged further help, if the opportunity arose, in the battle to block his deportation.