HUNDREDS of foreign criminals, some of them dangerous offenders, are missing in Britain as figures revealed as much as £1 billion has been spent on them.
One in six of the 4200 foreign national offenders living in the community have absconded, including 58 “high harm” individuals who have been missing since 2010, the Government’s spending watchdog has revealed.
In its report, the National Audit Office also found police are failing to conduct overseas criminal record checks on more than two thirds of arrested foreign nationals.
Serious concerns were recently raised over the effectiveness of police and border background checks following the case of Arnis Zalkalns, the prime suspect in the murder of schoolgirl Alice Gross who had served seven years for killing his wife in his native Latvia.
Zalkalns was found dead earlier this month.
Conservative MP Philip Hollobone, who has long raised concerns about the number of foreigners in UK prisons and failures to deport them, said: “Most people will be staggered that despite increasing its staffing for deportations from 100 to 900, the Home Office is not actually deporting any more FNOs than it was before.
“The public will also be concerned that at any one time over 4,000 convicted FNOs are at large within our communities and that of these over 700 go missing.
“My view is that if you are a foreign national who commits a crime in the UK, you should be caught, convicted and sentenced with your sentence served back in your own country at the expense of your fellow nationals.
“If their countries won’t take them, then their embassies should be sent the bill. All such individuals should be banned from ever returning to our shores.”
Foreign prisoners have risen from 10,231 to 10,649 since 2006, the NAO said, while removal numbers have fallen to 5,097 from a peak of 5,613 in 2008/09.
This comes despite a 10-fold increase in the number of Home Office staff working on foreign national offenders, from 100 to more than 900.
There were 12,500 foreign national offenders in the country at the end of March this year, either in prison or living in the community pending removal from the country, according to the NAO.
