Alice Gross inquest 'must scrutinise why suspected killer was in UK'
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Version 0 of 1. The family of Alice Gross have told the high court they want the inquest into her death to scrutinise any blunders by authorities that allowed her suspected killer, a convicted murderer, into the UK. Welcoming a decision yesterday that paved the way for a jury to oversee an inquest next year, the family’s legal counsel said it should review police policies and procedures in place from 2009-14 for checking the criminal backgrounds of non-UK nationals in the country. Rajeev Thacker, representing the family at a pre-inquest hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Wednesday, told the court: “We are talking about the acts and omissions of a police force and a government body. “The family submit it is important members of the public potentially affected by that have the opportunity to hear evidence, ask questions of witnesess and give their view of what, if anything, did go wrong.” Related: Alice Gross murder: police say enough evidence to have charged Arnis Zalkalns Arnis Zalkalns, a 41-year-old builder from Latvia, is believed to have killed 14-year-old Alice in August 2014 before dumping her body in a river in west London weighed down by parts of a tree trunk. Zalkalns then took his own life. Alice was found on 30 September last year after Scotland Yard conducted its biggest search since the 7 July bombings. Zalkalns, who was found hanged in a park on 4 October 2014, had murdered his wife in Latvia, and would have been charged with Alice’s murder had he been alive, according to police. Thacker said that in 1998, Zalkalns was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the murder of his Latvian wife, and at the time of his release had served about seven years. In 2007 he travelled from Latvia to the UK, and in 2009 was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a teenage girl but was not charged. At the time of the alleged offence it appeared he was still subject to some kind of supervisory or probation arrangement in Latvia. Thacker said: “The family has been informed that it was only after [Zalkalns] had disappeared that his previous conviction for murder was discovered by the Metropolitan police.” Thacker said yesterday that the full inquest – provisionally fixed for seven days from 27 June 2016 – should take the form of “an enhanced Article 2 investigation”. Article 2 of the European convention on human rights obliges the state to protect life and for official inquiries to be held where it is “arguable” the obligation has been breached. Thacker added in written submissions to the coroner that possible systemic failures included that of the Home Office “warnings index” to identify a convicted murderer entering the country from an EU country in 2007, and a failure of the police to make relevant inquiries at the point Zalkalns was arrested for a suspected assault on a UK teenage girl in the UK in 2009. The Gross family have said they do not want anti-immigration groups to exploit their daughter’s death for political gain. |