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| Reid moves to quell offenders row | Reid moves to quell offenders row |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| No violent or sexual offenders have been cleared for work due to a failure to update police records of Britons convicted abroad, the Home Office says. | No violent or sexual offenders have been cleared for work due to a failure to update police records of Britons convicted abroad, the Home Office says. |
| The issue concerns 27,500 files which were not logged on a police computer. | The issue concerns 27,500 files which were not logged on a police computer. |
| Fears had grown that some offenders may have been cleared to work with children after failures to record EU convictions with the Criminal Records Bureau. | Fears had grown that some offenders may have been cleared to work with children after failures to record EU convictions with the Criminal Records Bureau. |
| Home Secretary John Reid said he wanted to "reassure the public" that he was working "to ensure public protection". | Home Secretary John Reid said he wanted to "reassure the public" that he was working "to ensure public protection". |
| Five of the 540 most serious offenders had sought checks with the CRB for employment purposes which did not show up their crimes, the Home Office said. | |
| A spokeswoman confirmed that four of these had been convicted for drugs offences in Europe. The other had been convicted of assisting illegal entry to a country. | |
| I have authorised these details to be released to reassure the public that the necessary steps are being taken to ensure public protection Home Secretary John Reid | |
| She confirmed that two were applying for jobs as sports coaches, two had sought employment as carers and one as a foster carer. | |
| Four were men and one was a woman, she said. | |
| "These offences would not in themselves have necessarily debarred them from the employment that they sought," she added. | |
| The Home Office said it is now informing the offenders' places of work of the new information. | |
| More cases investigated | |
| A further nine cases had been found where individuals with similar details to those on the list had undergone CRB checks. | |
| Efforts were continuing to establish whether they were actually the same people, the spokeswoman added. | |
| None of the offences committed by this group were of a violent or sexual nature. | |
| In a statement, Mr Reid said: "I have authorised these details to be released to reassure the public that the necessary steps are being taken to ensure public protection." | |
| He added that he has asked the police and probation services to ensure that any sex offenders identified would be monitored in the same way as they would if they had been convicted in the UK. | |
| The 27,500 figure was calculated by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) when it took over responsibility for processing the data from the Home Office in March last year. | |
| That emerged publicly only earlier this week. | |
| The Home Secretary said he was unaware of the backlog. | |
| Of the 540 most serious cases, which include rapes, murders and paedophilia, 260 have now been entered onto the police national computer. |