UK: Scandal of 4,000 Violent Foreign Criminals Let Back on The Streets Instead of Deported

Daily Mail
February 1, 2014

The number of foreign prisoners is growing and attempts to remove them are often futile, a secret Government report warns.

The Home Office document, marked restricted but leaked ahead of a crunch vote by MPs, reveals there are about 12,000 foreign prisoners in the UK – and another 4,000 who have been freed after serving a sentence but not deported.

Their offences include murder, manslaughter, rape of a minor and kidnap.

The report predicts that numbers of more serious offenders will increase and admits: ‘Some countries are extremely difficult to remove a non-compliant person to… these include Iran, Somalia and Zimbabwe.’

The leak came as rebel Tory MPs will today threaten to back a Commons motion that would make it easier to deport foreign criminals after their sentence.

Dominic Raab, whose move is supported by more than 100 MPs, said the leaked document was ‘a chilling analysis of the growing threat of foreign national criminals’.

He added: ‘Today MPs have a chance to steel our deportation capacity to protect the public. We must take it.’

Mr Raab’s amendment to the Government’s Immigration Bill would require judges to deport foreign criminals jailed for over a year, unless they were at risk of torture or murder on return.

It would effectively overrule the controversial Article 8 protection for family life contained in the European Convention on Human Rights used by some foreigners to avoid deportation.

David Cameron has indicated some sympathy with the idea but Home Secretary Theresa May is said to have vetoed Government support for the change.

Nick Clegg is also said to have raised concerns.

The Home Office report, which appears to date from 2012, says there were 10,779 foreigners serving time in UK prisons, 1,431 who had served time but were still detained pending removal, and 4,238 now ‘non-detained’ because there was ‘no reasonable expectation of removal in the short term’.

It warns that polling data shows that removing foreign prisoners at the end of their sentence is considered ‘one of the key priorities’ for the UK Border Agency by the public.’

‘Individual cases continue to receive high-profile media coverage, more recently focusing on the UK’s inability to deport individuals due to Article 8 of the ECHR,’ it continues.

The report warns that the number of ‘non-detained, time-served’ foreign prisoners has ‘increased due to accumulation of hard to remove cases and longer time spent in the UK’.

It says data from late in 2011 showed that 111 ‘non-detained’ foreigners had committed the most serious offences, including murder, manslaughter, rape, rape of a minor, sex offences against children, indecent assault of a minor or terrorist offences.

A further 485 had committed serious offences including attempted murder, attempted rape, kidnapping, sex offences, violent crime, indecent assault, armed robbery and conspiracy to murder, kidnap or defraud.

‘The absolute numbers of these types of offenders will increase,’ the report adds, suggesting the total number of serious offenders will rise to 646 by April of this year.

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