An Australian former financial director who stole £650,000 from the London Philharmonic Orchestra has avoided deportation because of his right to family life under human rights laws.

Cameron Poole was found guilty of stealing funds from the LPO between 2006 and 2009, where he embarked on a three-year buying spree of luxuries including art, exotic holidays and major renovations to the four-bedroom house he shared with his then-wife Suzanne Poole and his three children.

After he left his post with LPO, bosses discovered Poole’s fraud and in October 2010 he was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. The court was told it was estimated as a result of the fraud the LPO lost £2.3million in arts council grants, legal fees and missing interest payments. An attempt by the British government to deport Poole to Australia failed, and an appeal by the Home Office has now been rejected on the grounds that removing Poole from the UK would infringe his right to family life. With Poole’s immediate family in the UK, the judgement ruled “there was no prospect of the children travelling independently to Australia to visit him in the foreseeable future”. Poole’s ex-wife also...