Farhad Hosnavi has been jailed for the fifth time in two years after smashing up Bethel Street police station in Norwich, bringing the cost of his repeated attacks to more than £10,000. The 27-year-old Iranian was sentenced after the latest incident on Saturday, the newest chapter in a case that has returned him to court and prison again and again.
People following the case now are asking the same question for a reason: Hosnavi was warned almost a year ago that he faced deportation, yet he is still in the UK and has now been jailed again. He was told to leave the Holiday Inn Express Hotel on Drayton High Road in January 2024 after being found with a knife, and the asylum hotel became the starting point for a string of offences that spread from the hotel to Norwich’s main police station.
Each time he has been released, Hosnavi has quickly gone back to damaging property. He returned to the hotel in April 2024 and caused damage there, then came back again in May 2024 and smashed windows, leading to a 16-week sentence. The latest attack on Bethel Street police station caused more than £5,000 of damage to the door alone, underlining how much of the total bill has been driven by just two sites in the city.
The case is complicated by what happens next. Hosnavi, who arrived in the UK by crossing the Channel illegally in a small boat, has been described in court as desperate to return to Germany, where he lived before coming to Britain and where he had settled status. One hearing was told: “He is begging the Home Office to take him back to Germany.” His lawyers say he keeps carrying out the attacks in Norfolk because he wants to go to prison and is unhappy that he does not have accommodation.
But the deportation question remains unresolved, and it is the part that makes this latest sentence more than another short spell inside. International tensions make removal to Iran extremely difficult, even after a judge told Hosnavi he faced deportation and handed him a 12-month sentence almost a year ago. For now, the pattern is unchanged: a brief release, another attack, another jail term, and another reminder that neither the courts nor the immigration system have yet found a way to stop him.
