An error on the police national computer, which went undetected for five years, meant that the UK failed to pass on the details of 75,000 convictions of foreign nationals to their respective home countries in the EU.
The UK then concealed the error, revealed in the minutes of a meeting at the criminal records office, for fear of damaging the UK’s reputation in Europe’s capitals.
As details of the cover-up were released, calls were raised for an investigation in the UK, and one MEP warned that an inquiry from Brussels was inevitable.
The error meant that one in three alerts on offenders – including murderers and rapists – was not sent to EU member states so they remained unaware that their nationals had been convicted, what threat they posed, or what their sentences were.
These dangerous offenders could have returned to their home countries without the country’s knowledge of any danger they may have presented.
The error was so great that, initially, the Home Office chose to conceal the failure from EU partners.
Minutes of the meeting from last May were published on the ACRO website, then subsequently removed following an article in The Guardian newspaper. The minutes stated: “There is a nervousness from the Home Office around sending the historical notifications out dating back to 2012 due to the reputational impact this could have.”
The following month, a minute read: “There is still uncertainty whether historical DAFs [daily activity files], received from the Home Office, are going to be sent out to counties (sic) as there is a reputational risk to the UK.”
A spokesman said, when asked if the Home Office had resolved the problem in the seven months since June’s meeting: “Work is already under way with the police to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.”
As of this week, sources confirmed that the backlog of 75,000 notifications had still not been sent to European law enforcement agencies. “It’s an ongoing glitch that we need to fix,” admitted one insider. “We are working towards getting that done.”
Amongst others, Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbot called for a “full urgent investigation” into the decision to conceal the error, while the Liberal Democrats said the Home office had “serious questions to answer”.
Speaking to The Guardian, Abbot said: “It is bad enough to have made serious errors in relation to sharing information on criminals, but it seems that there was also an attempt at a cover-up.
“Ministers need to come clean. When did they know about these failures, why did they not make them public, and how are they going to prevent any repetition? A full, urgent investigation is needed.”
Yvette Cooper, chair of the home affairs select committee during the last parliament said the revelations were “deeply disturbing”.
“We need to know whether that decision not to immediately pass on criminal information has put public safety at risk,” she said.
“The Home Office needs to explain why they did not immediately pass that information on as soon as the error was discovered. To put their reputation ahead of public safety would be highly irresponsible and risks undermining crucial international crime-fighting relationships.”
The scandal comes at a time when the UK’s security reputation with the EU is already under scrutiny, with crucial negotiations coming up on the UK’s future with the bloc.
The European parliament’s justice and home affairs committee has seen evidence of “deliberate violations and abuse” by the UK of the Schengen Information System (SIS) – a database used by police and border guards across the border-free Schengen zone.
It is said that the British authorities made full or partial copies of the database, unlawfully, that the EU reports pose “serious and immediate risks to the integrity and security of SIS data”.
A Dutch MEP on the European parliament’s committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs said she said the issue would be raised with the European Commission in a resolution, adding that she expected an urgent inquiry by a European parliament justice committee.
Sophie in ’t Veld, the MEP in question, said: “This is yet another scandal that casts a very dark shadow over security and law enforcement cooperation. This cover-up could have exposed EU countries to security risks and should urgently be investigated by the Schengen scrutiny group in the European parliament.
“Certainly, we will add this to the already long list of issues that need to be discussed with the UK in the context of the future relationship.
“This revelation of the failure to alert authorities on criminals and the cover-up afterwards casts serious doubts on the UK as a reliable partner.
“The purpose of information exchange is enhancing security. If one side fails to deliver, security gains are zero and cooperation pointless.”
A source within the EU has said that the revelations undermine British claims that losing access to the databases would prove mutually disadvantageous, while an EU official said the issue would impact on the level of trust in the UK.
With the nature of the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU already in question, the government will need to convince Brussels that there should be operational cooperation between law enforcement authorities in criminal matters and continued data exchange.
At the currently anticipated end of the transition period in December 2020, the UK will cease to be a member of Europol, and police and security services will lose access to key EU databases.
Officials believe the failure to notify EU partners of the criminal convictions was down to the police national computer which contains information on millions of convicted criminals and their jail records.
It creates daily activity files (DAFs) of the latest updates to the system’s records, of which any relation to foreign offenders should be forwarded to the European Criminal Records information Exchange System (ECRIS) by ACRO, responsible for sharing international police data.
ACRO realised last year that a large number of the alerts relating to foreign criminals had been missed, and the organisation’s strategic management board was briefed on the error last May about the 2ongoing issue dating back to 2015 regarding notifications out for foreign nationals a that the current DAF reports are missing about 30% of foreign nationals”.
An ACRO spokesman said: “ACRO relies on the daily activity files from the police national computer to send notification messages to other countries in relation to cases where one of their nationals has been convicted in the UK.
“The issue arose when it was noticed that not all relevant DAFs were sent to ACRO, for example in cases where the subject had dual nationality.
“As a result, a software script has been developed at Hendon, the PNC headquarters, and is due to be released in the next software update schedule (the date of which is yet to be confirmed).”
