Police records show that UKʼs visa system has major holes - foreign criminals with serious records just walk in by not telling about their past crimes
Records from last three years show troubling numbers: over 700 people with murder rape or child-abuse convictions got into Britain from Romania alone. The ACRO criminal-records office found these cases only after checking suspects backgrounds with their home countries
Here are some real-life examples that show how bad this problem is:
- Michael Podlaszczyk came here after 12 years in Polish jail for killing someone
- Vytautas Jokubauskas had a murder conviction from back in 92
- Raimondas Jakstas moved to UK after doing time for beating someone to death
The top-three countries where most criminals came from are: Romania (with 307 murder cases); Lithuania (having 93 cases)‚ and Poland (showing 83 such records) The system just asks people to self-declare their crimes which is clearly not working - they dont have to prove anything
Chris Philp who works as shadow home-secretary thinks the new e-travel system (coming in 25) might help: “We cant have known foreign criminals roaming our streets‚“ he says but even this wont fix everything because it still relies on people being honest
A former border officer explains: “Its hard to fix because different countries systems dont connect to each other; plus getting police certificates would slow down visa processing too much“ Some famous people like Mike Tyson cant enter UK due to their records - but many non-famous criminals just slip through
The Home Office says they do check databases and watchlists but clearly thats not enough to catch everyone with a criminal past