Boris Becker freed from prison and facing deportation over bankruptcy debt convictions
The six-time tennis Grand Slam champion was jailed for two-and-a-half years for hiding £2.5 million of assets and loans to avoid paying his debts
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Boris Becker has been freed from prison after serving just eight months of his sentence and now faces deportation from the UK.
The three-time Wimbledon champion was jailed for two-and-a-half years in April for hiding £2.5 million of assets and loans to avoid paying his debts.
The former world number one and BBC commentator was declared bankrupt on June 21 2017 – owing creditors almost £50 million – over an unpaid loan of more than £3 million on his estate in Majorca.
The 55-year-old German, 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, the PA news agency understands.
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 south-west 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.