Furore grows in Britain over released foreign convicts

AFP | April 29 2006

The furore in Britain over the release of foreign prisoners without deportation escalated Friday when Prime Minister Tony Blair's embattled government revealed that five of the convicts had gone on to become repeat serious offenders.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke, facing calls to fall on his sword and resign for failing to safeguard the public, said the five had been convicted of violent disorder, grievous and actual bodily harm, and drug crimes.

A "thorough search" of judicial and penal records had taken place, Clarke said, but it yielded no cases in which offenders had been convicted of the most worst crimes such as murder, rape or child sex offences.

"I very much regret the shortcomings which I have reported," he said.

"The genuine shortcomings which have been revealed in dealing with foreign national prisoners will be repaired and we will learn the lessons to make whatever further changes are needed to improve the quality of what we do across the whole Home Office," the ministry in charge of law and order in Britain.

Clarke touched off a furore on Wednesday when he acknowledged that 1,023 convicts of foreign nationality had not been considered for deportation -- as they should have been -- upon their release.

His data went back to 1999, the first year that records that could reveal the scale of the problem were kept -- and included 288 who walked out of prison even after Clarke learned what was happening.

The biggest number of convicts came from Jamaica (175), Nigeria (89), Iraq (58), Ireland (50) and Somalia (48), and the overall total included three murderers, nine rapists, five child molesters and 20 drug smugglers.

Frantic efforts now are underway to find the prisoners, who could face fast-track deportation when -- and if -- they are caught.

The uproar only added a growing plate of troubles for Blair ahead of local council elections in London and other English cities that could see voters punish his Labour Party -- already sagging in the polls -- at the ballot box.

On top of allegations that rich Labour supporters were rewarded with peerages and other honours, Blair's government has been rocked by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's confession that he cheated on his wife with a two-year affair with a secretary 24 years his junior.

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt was meanwhile humiliated in public Wednesday when she was booed and heckled at a nurses' convention after claiming that the free-care-for-all National Health Service was enjoying "one of its best years ever" -- even as it considers laying off thousands of staff.

Law and order is a core Labour theme in Thursday's elections, which risks putting Blair under renewed pressure to stand down in favour of Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown if it suffers big losses.

Clarke, a loyal Blairite who twice this week offered to resign, only to be told by the prime minister to hang on, was Friday facing renewed calls to go from the main opposition Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

"His position is untenable. He should take responsibility for what has been a massive failure," Conservative home affairs critic David Davis told Sky News television.

His Lib Dem counterpart Nick Clegg said: "No secretary of state should stay in his post when serious offences have been committed by people who could and should have been removed from the country."

Prison Planet.tv: The Premier Multimedia Subscription Package: Download and Share the Truth!