Home Office Admits to Losing Track of Over 900 Foreign Criminals

The British Home Office has lost track of over 900 foreign criminals, many of whom the government has failed to enact deportation orders against.

Home Office figures released as a result of a Freedom of Information request have shown that there are currently 916 Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) listed as having absconded into the country.

The foreign criminals include sixteen rapists, including child predators, and 20 other types of sex offender, along with 16 burglars, 53 robbers, 65 thieves, and 53 violent offenders including murderers.

The foreigners are said to have avoided deportation by disappearing after their release from prison or in some cases escaping from jails or prison vans.

Foreign criminals escaping into the population is not a new phenomenon in Britain, with Tony Blair-era home secretary Charles Clarke having been forced to resign from his post in 2006 after it emerged that the Labour government had set free 1,023 foreign criminals who should have been deported from the country.

Conservative governments have also failed to tackle the problem, with a 2017 report from then-Chief Inspector of Borders David Bolt revealing that the government of Theresa May had lost track of at least 753 foreign criminals.

Over the past two years, the number of Foreign National Offender (FNO) absconders has risen by 169, despite persistent tough talk on immigration and crime from Home Secretary Priti Patel.

One of the absconders highlighted in the report includes Iraqi national Rezgar Zengana, who impersonated a private taxi driver in order to rape a 25-year-old woman in Glasgow in 2006. The 38-year-old, who is featured on the National Crime Agency’s most wanted list, remains at large after escaping before his sentencing hearing.