[ad_1]
The convictions of 109 offenders, 81 rapists and one man convicted of both offenses by UK courts were not transmitted to the offenders’ EU countries of origin due to a massive computer system bug and subsequent cover-up by The Guardian .
These serious cases are among 112,490 criminal convictions that have not been sent to EU capitals over a period of eight years due to a catastrophic computer error.
The scandal mainly involves citizens who are rarely deported even after long prison terms, leaving EU member states uninformed about people convicted of crimes in the UK who might have entered their country in the meantime.
Disclosure is extremely sensitive at a time when UK police forces are relying on goodwill for continued information sharing cooperation, following the loss of access to EU databases with Brexit.
The problem was discovered at least six years ago and a temporary information update office was established at that time.
According to The Guardian, there were no reports of 191 people convicted of serious or premeditated crimes, rape, pedophilia or wrongful death.
EU member states were not informed of this issue until last fall, after the same source made a first disclosure about it.
Out of a total of 112,490 convictions in UK courts that have not been sent to EU Member States, documents show that 81,706 cases were reported late as of 15 February, including 19,565 to Poland, 17,996 to Ireland and 12,466. to Romania. The UK criminal records office said another 7,100 notifications had been made in the past two weeks.
The problem mainly affects EU citizens who do not have a registered fingerprint. But a series of other system errors caused the notification to not go through. Poland was not informed of the convictions of 15 of its citizens, as the computerized police system wrongly assigned them as from the Pitcairn Islands.
Officials noted in 2015 that the system was prone to errors, with several convicted criminals living on a small atoll in the Pacific Ocean, known as Wake Island, when they actually lived in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
The problem was caused by the national police computer system, a database used by UK law enforcement, managed by the Home Office, which generates daily information on the latest updates.
If a foreign offender is convicted, the Acro Criminal Records Office, the UK body responsible for exchanging data with the international police, is legally obliged under EU law to alert the police in the country of origin. of the condemned.
Six years ago, officials realized there was a serious flaw in the system and warned the Home Office, according to documents obtained by The Guardian.
These documents clearly show that the issue has been discussed at a high level since 2015 within the Ministry of the Interior, concluding that “significant funds and resources would be required to process the missing files “
A second internal Acro report shows that a software correction request was submitted to the Ministry in January 2017, but was postponed.
The police continued to raise the issue, but it was concealed from European law enforcement. “Because of the reputational impact it could have.”
It was only after the Guardian discovered the missing alert scandal a year ago that ministers informed parliament and pledged to fix the problem. At the time, the number of lost records was estimated at 75,000.
Sophie in ‘t Veld, a Dutch MEP who sits on the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, said: “The day will come when one of these people will commit a very serious crime and then everyone will say: because I did not know it?
In ‘t Veld said the scandal raised questions about whether or not the UK will abide by the security and data sharing agreements agreed to in the Brexit deal.
Publisher: DC
