Politicians failing to deport foreign criminals 'have blood on their hands', bereaved father says

A damning report found that hundreds of offenders are missing

Theresa May (Getty)

Politicians failing to keep track of foreign criminals have “blood on their hands” according to the father of a 12-year-old girl run over by a banned driver.

Amy Houston was killed in a hit and run in Blackburn, in 2003, by a failed asylum seeker from Iraq who had been disqualified from driving for having no insurance or licence.

Her father, Paul Houston, condemned authorities for failing to deport him and other offenders from abroad.

“They owe it to society to protect us from dangerous criminals,” he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme, adding that a “lot of money has been spent” for “very little progress”.

A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has revealed that one in six foreign national offenders in British communities (760) have absconded, including 58 “high harm” criminals missing since 2010.

The number of foreign prisoners has gone up despite an almost tenfold increase in officials working on their cases in a situation “broadly unchanged” for eight years.

Arnis Zalkalns, believed to have murdered Alice Gross, was allowed to stay in the UK because officials were unaware of a murder conviction in Latvia (PA)

There were 10,649 prisoners from overseas, as of March 2014, and 151 had left prison without being considered for deportation since 2009.

The Home Office said recently enacted laws were making it easier to deport foreign offenders.

Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said it was “no easy matter” to deport foreign offenders but more had to be done.

“Too little progress has been made, despite the increased resources and effort devoted to this problem,” she added.

“The Government’s focus on preventative measures and early action is promising, but it has only just started to exploit these options.

“It needs to build on the momentum of its recent action plan, in particular taking advantage of relatively inexpensive and straightforward opportunities to make progress.”

The Home Office was criticised for failing to deport foreign offenders quickly enough (Getty Images)

In the 2013-14 financial year, 5,097 foreign offenders were removed from the country, the NAO said, and 1,453 deportation attempts failed.

Managing and attempting to remove criminals from overseas cost £850 million last year and by the end of March,12,250 foreign offenders were pending deportation action in England and Wales.

From April 2013, all criminals born overseas were automatically considered for deportation and the time taken for the process has reduced to an average of 319 days.

The NAO is advocating the use of “early removal schemes” to speed up the process and save public money.

The most common nationality for foreign prisoners in England and Wales was Polish, followed by Irish, Jamaican, Romanian and Pakistani.

Other countries in the top 10 were Lithuania, Nigeria, India, Somalia and Albania.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow Home Secretary, was been granted an urgent question in the House of Commons on the issue on Wednesday.

Yvette Cooper started a debate in the House of Commons on the issue (Getty Images)

She called the report “a damning indictment of the Home Secretary’s failure to deport foreign criminals”.

But immigration and security minister James Brokenshire said that foreign offenders should be in “no doubt” of the Government's resolute approach to removing them.

“The countless appeals and re-appeals lodged by criminals attempting to cheat the system cost us all money and are an affront to British justice,” he told the BBC.

"New powers came into force this week to cut the number of grounds on which criminals can appeal their deportation and to end the appeals conveyor belt in the courts."