Boris Becker faces UK deportation after serving eight months of jail term

Former Wimbledon champion was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for hiding assets to avoid paying debts

Boris Becker has been freed from prison after serving eight months of his sentence and now faces deportation from the United Kingdom. File photograph: PA Images
Boris Becker has been freed from prison after serving eight months of his sentence and now faces deportation from the United Kingdom. File photograph: PA Images

Boris Becker has been freed from prison after serving eight months of his sentence and now faces deportation from the United Kingdom.

The three-time Wimbledon champion was jailed for two-and-a-half years in April for hiding £2.5 million (€2.9 million) of assets and loans to avoid paying his debts.

The former world number one and BBC commentator was declared bankrupt on June 21st, 2017 – owing creditors almost £50 million – over an unpaid loan of more than £3 million on his estate in Majorca.

The German (55), who has lived in the UK since 2012, was expected to serve half of his sentence behind bars but was released on Thursday morning and is due on a flight to be deported from the UK, it is understood.

READ SOME MORE

He is thought to have been transferred to a lower security jail for foreign criminals awaiting deportation in May – Category C Huntercombe Prison near Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire – after previously reportedly being held at Category B Wandsworth Prison in southwest London.

The six-time grand slam champion qualified for automatic deportation because he is a foreign national who does not have British citizenship and received a custodial sentence of more than 12 months.