British authorities have failed to convey, as they should have, tens of thousands of convictions of European citizens to their country of origin. They then tried to hide the problem, the daily said on Wednesday January 15. The Guardian.
These embarrassing revelations about these snags in security cooperation come at a time when the United Kingdom has to negotiate with the European Union (EU) on the terms of its relationship after Brexit, particularly in terms of the judiciary and the exchange of information.
"Reputational risk"
A computer problem in the police system has prevented the transmission of 75,000 records of convictions by British justice of nationals of EU countries since 2015, the newspaper said. This represents 30% of the convictions, some for rape or murder.
Once the problem was detected, the authorities sought to cover it, the report of a meeting on the subject in May 2019 said the interior minister. "Nervous" to the idea of communicating the history of convictions, according to Guardian.
A similar account published a month later revealed that he was "Still uncertain" that the missing files be sent to the countries concerned, due to the “Risk to the reputation of the United Kingdom”.
Asked by the daily, Dutch MEP Sophie in’t Veld called for a European investigation, saying that "After-the-fact concealment questions the reliability of the UK as a partner".
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