'We thought we had been told everything'

Shadow home secretary David Davis described this as the latest in a "catalogue of blunders", adding: "The last three years have been the worst in the Home Office's 200-year history." Here, T&A Reporter JIM GREENHALF talks to Bradford South MP Gerry Sutcliffe, an Under-Secretary of State under Mr Reid.

Hundreds of British paedophiles, killers and violent criminals who have committed offences in Europe could now be back in the UK working in schools and hospitals in the latest blow to the Home Office's beleaguered credibility.

The T&A has been told that Home Secretary John Reid has ordered his officials to find out by tomorrow if this is true.

The story blew up after an admission to the House of Commons' Home Affairs Select Committee that 27,000 files of information about the criminal activity of UK nationals abroad had not been passed on by the Home Office.

It seemed the latest in a long line of blunders going back to last year.

These blunders included the mistaken release of more than 1,000 illegal immigrants - only 86 of whom had been recaptured - the release into the community of criminals with records of violence and registered sex offenders being allowed to work in schools and hospitals.

Here in Bradford, a nationwide hunt was launched in September after convicted rapist Kelly Edney, 27, absconded from the Box Tree Cottage residential home at Four Lane Ends, Allerton Road, Daisy Hill, after breaking off his electronic tag. He was caught in Taunton after a four-day search and put back behind bars for breaching his licence. He had headed for the Somerset town where he brutally raped a 16-year-old schoolgirl eight years ago.

And Stephen Ayre, 44, was released early from prison after serving 20 years of a 25-year life sentence for the murder of a Shipley woman in 1984.

In February last year he carried out a horrendous rape on a ten-year-old boy and was subsequently jailed for life.

What next?

Bradford South MP Gerry Sutcliffe, appointed last year as Under-Secretary of State for criminal justice at the Home Office - one of nine areas of responsibility - agreed to explain to the Telegraph & Argus.

"The new Home Office team took over last May," he said. "The Home Secretary admitted to the House of Commons that there was a series of failures and that within 100 days he would produce plans to put them right.

"In that first 100 days we were trying to determine what all the failures were. We thought we had been told everything. In July we came up with a series of reform plans.

"One of them was a new Immigration and Nationality Agency to resolve our immigration problems. We are now in the process of putting the legislation in place to create that agency.

"We said we would deal with child sex offenders. This is something that I am dealing with. I am going back to the United States in early February to complete my report. I shall be announcing my proposals later that month.

"The problem that we had this week was that the Home Office was not told about the 27,000 files until Tuesday. We thought everything was out in the open."

So will the person or persons responsible be disciplined or fired?

"The investigation into why the information was not passed on will throw up which official did not pass on the information. You cannot pre-judge the inquiry," said Mr Sutcliffe. "The unions would say we had prejudiced the case. The report will be made in the next six weeks.

"The Home Secretary got ACPO (the Association of Chief Police Officers), the Criminal Records Bureau's chief executive and Home Office officials together and told them that he wants to know by this Friday if anyone on the list is working in a place where they should not be. If there is he will deal with it.

"There is some complicated back history to this. In 1959 there was a European Convention that created a voluntary system for the exchange of information about offenders in countries other than their own.

"It didn't work. In 1999 the European Union decided it was going to formalise this and did it in 2005. Now member states are obliged to pass on this information.

"ACPO tendered for the job of organising it in the UK and they got it. The trouble is the quality of information that comes from other EU countries varies. Only the UK, Ireland and France have sex offender registers, for example.

"So the latest issue isn't as big as it may seem. Some of the 27,000 files are not meaningful. ACPO examined the most serious and they are all on police computer now."

As T&A readers know, Shipley Conservative MP Philip Davies spent 22 days watching various parts of West Yorkshire Police at work.

The Minister said: "I know he did. I made a point of congratulating him for his initiative at Question Time," he said.

In summary, Mr Davies said the police service was deeply flawed from being managed in a top-down fashion with the Home Secretary passing on proposals and targets to chief constables.

"Each of the UK's 42 police authorities has its own chief constable. When we tried to reduce the number of police authorities we were criticised and reviewed the situation.

"We decided to do so would make the police service cumbersome - too top-down," Mr Sutcliffe said.

"Yes, we can suggest national targets, but chief constables have a high measure of autonomy. We have seen Community Support Officers, neighbourhood policing and Basic Command Units set up in West Yorkshire and these have helped to reduce crime - although the perception is that it's going up.

"It's not a case of being told what to do by the Home Secretary.

"You cannot become an expert in 22 days. We are looking forward to working with Sir Norman Bettison, the new Chief Constable of West Yorkshire, who used to be a Bradford officer."

According to the Department for Work and Pensions, in the 12 months from 2005 to 2006 more than 35,000 migrants from the former eastern Europe and Pakistan arrived in West Yorkshire - more than 4,600 of them in Bradford, 7,190 in Leeds and 4,400 in Sheffield.

Isn't the Home Office concerned about the additional strains that the presence of so many foreigners must be putting on the services of this country?

"We have introduced a points system for non-EU nationals. If people from outside Europe want to settle here they have to fulfil a number of criteria about what they can do," said Mr Sutcliffe.

"We have Freedom of Movement in the EU and this will benefit our economy in the long term. Contributions to pensions used to be four workers for every pensioner, that is now two workers for every pensioner.

"The Department of Community and Local Government is looking at the impact on our communities of changing nationalities."

e-mail: jim.greenhalf@bradford.newsquest.co.uk

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