Alice Gross inquest: 'convicted killers are not stopped automatically at UK borders'

Arnis Zalkalns killed Alice Gross and dumped her in the river Brent in Hanwell
John Dunne @jhdunne29 June 2016

Border officials would still not automatically stop a convicted killer entering the UK even if their criminal record was picked up, an inquest into the murder of London teenager Alice Gross heard today.

Latvian Arnis Zalkalns, who is believed to have murdered the schoolgirl, walked into Britain unchecked in 2007 despite being convicted of killing and burying his wife in Latvia.

In August 2014, Zalkalns killed Alice and dumped her in the river Brent in Hanwell, weighed down with bricks and logs.

The 14-year-old’s body was discovered on September 30. She had died from compression asphyxia.

Zalkalns, 41, was found hanged nearby in Boston Manor Park on October 4.

Police said he would have been charged with Alice’s murder had he been alive.

Home Office official David Cheesman told the inquest at the Royal Courts of Justice today that unless someone was on a watch list or there was specific intelligence information flagging them up they could gain entry to the UK without a criminal records check.

Even if their record was picked up they would not be guaranteed to be deported or refused entry, he admitted.

The family's lawyer Rajeev Thacker asked Mr Cheesman under cross examination: "If you don't get the information from the EU country the only check you make is when he murders someone else?"

Mr Cheesman replied: "That sometimes happens."

On the current situation he said: “Someone with a murder conviction would be considered for deportation... I could not guarantee that just because you had a murder conviction you would be deported or refused entry (to the UK).”

The official said “there was not such a robust” process in 2007 and that the likelihood would be that Zalkalns’ past criminal record would have caught up with him if he had come to the UK in 2016.

He said: “We work with proactive information, it’s information we put on the warnings index. We encourage police to work with immigration officers.”

Mr Cheesman said that 95 per cent of EU nationals were subject to a criminal records check if they were arrested on suspicion of committing an offence in the UK.

Zalkalns was convicted of murdering his wife and burying her body and had served a prison term in Lativia.

He was arrested in 2009 in west London for an alleged sexual assault but was not checked for an international criminal record because then it was not, unlike now, required of police. He was not charged.

Mr Cheesman said that systems of monitoring EU citizens had improved and he hoped that Britain’s exit from the EU would not affect that.

He said: “I hope we can still work closely with our neighbours.”

The inquest heard that of the millions of people entering the UK from the EU, hundreds had been subject to “proactive” criminal records checks.

In 2006 there were 23 criminal records checks requested by UK officials on Latvian nationals. In 2015 the number was 2,807, Mr Cheesman told the inquest.

Alice’s mother Rosalind Hodgkiss has demanded to know why Zalkalns was allowed into the UK unmonitored.

The inquest continues.

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