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BBC News - UK
11 January 2007

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Pressure grows over crime file

The home secretary is under pressure over a backlog of files on Britons who committed crimes overseas, which were not entered onto the police database.
The government says no ministers knew about the 27,500 cases - 540 of them serious - left "sitting in files".

But Tories and Lib Dems are calling for the publication of a letter from police chiefs to the Home Office, which warned of difficulties in finding offenders.

Meanwhile, John Reid has been accused of trying to blame European "red tape".

On Wednesday, the home secretary told MPs that of the 540 serious crimes, which include rapes, murders and paedophilia, 260 had now been entered onto the police national computer.

Surprise at comments

But he added: "The remaining 280 cannot be entered on the computer and are the subject of further inquiries to the notifying country to get more details to try to establish the identity of the offender."

Former Labour MP Terry Davis, now secretary-general of the Council of Europe, said he was surprised by Mr Reid's attempt to pin the troubles on the 1959 Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters.

"It is clear that the origins of the problem are in London, not Strasbourg," he said.

"The question is why these files were not properly processed by the Home Office.

"If the information in some of these files is not complete or adequate, UK officials could have used the convention to ask for the gaps to be filled."

Mr Reid has announced an inquiry into what happened, amid concern serious criminals could have been cleared to work with children or vulnerable people.

'Very serious'

"This is a very serious problem and I take it very seriously indeed," he said.

In March 2006 the Association of Chief Police Officers took over responsibility for logging the cases with the police database.

But on Tuesday Acpo said, before they took over, details of 27,529 cases, including 25 Britons convicted of rape, had been left in Home Office files.

The Home Office said ministers were unaware of the scale of the backlog until this week.

But Acpo has said it wrote to police minister Tony McNulty in October, indicating that there were "continuing difficulties around the exchange of criminal records across the UK".

Shadow home secretary David Davis said the position of Mr McNulty and fellow minister Joan Ryan, who replied to the letter, would be "untenable" if they knew of the problems with the offenders' details.

"We need to see the full copy of this letter. Acpo should now publish it including all replies," he said.

The Liberal Democrats have made a request for the letter to be published under the Freedom of Information Act.

Home Affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said: "Yesterday John Reid told us he knew nothing. Today the tough-talking home secretary is hiding behind the skirts of his weakest minister.

"It is obvious from the reports of the letter received by Joan Ryan that her claim that ministers knew nothing is entirely discredited."

But during exchanges in the House of Commons, Commons Leader Jack Straw said Mr Reid had been "very open" about the problems at the Home Office.

"The moment this broke he came to the House and explained things," he said.

"I do not accept for a second that the ministers at the Home Office have had their reputation for integrity brought open to question."

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Article sourced from

BBC News - UK11 January 2007

Pressure grows over crime file

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BBC News - UK
11 January 2007