Illegal immigrants and criminality in Britain

Stewart Payne:

The kidnap, torture and murder of 16-year-old Mary Ann Leneghan has exposed a criminal underworld dominated by illegal immigrants who are able to act freely because of the impotence of the immigration service.

Attempts by the police to rid the streets of violent criminals who control the drug trade and prostitution are constantly frustrated because the Government has focused its performance targets on removing failed asylum seekers, who are often simply economic migrants.

Immigration officers, overwhelmed by their workload, are turning a blind eye to those who enter Britain illegally to commit crime.

Rob Wilson, the Conservative MP for Reading East, in whose constituency Mary Ann lived, has obtained details of Operation Falcon, which was an attack by Thames Valley police on violent crime in the Berkshire town, launched in the wake of her brutal killing.

He said it had revealed that the majority of drug-related offences were committed by people who had entered the country illegally. He described the immigration service as being in "meltdown" and has written to Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, to demand urgent action.

"The Government seems to have made a decision not to go after those who have entered the UK to commit crime and instead is taking the easier option - to expel economic migrants to make the figures look good," he said.

In documents seen by The Daily Telegraph, a senior officer on Operation Falcon said: "We try to crack down but get no support from the immigration service." He claimed that immigration staff routinely failed to attend police stations when his officers arrested suspected illegal immigrants and failed to track those who were meant to be deported, leaving them free to continue with their criminal activities.

He said that funding was urgently needed to tackle the problem and that the immigration service should be refocused. "It needs to work with us and not against us," he said. "I cannot emphasise enough the massive problem there is."

Six men, four of them on probation and one an illegal immigrant, were convicted of murdering Mary Ann earlier this month and await sentencing.

Since her killing in May last year, Operation Falcon officers have arrested more than 80 suspected illegal immigrants who were involved in drugs and prostitution.

The senior officer said: "We have a whole raft of people currently sentenced to terms of imprisonment who are illegal immigrants and where we have asked the immigration service to deport them after their sentences have been served.

"However, the immigration service will not track the sentence and invariably these people will be released and be back in Reading. A massive immigration crackdown is required in Reading."

He said that despite being "grossly understaffed", Operation Falcon hade made more than 1,000 arrests, seized 310kg (680lb) of classified drugs and significantly reduced the supply of Class A drugs in the town.

"If I was given proper funding and resources to tackle this problem, a real difference could me made and I have no doubt lives would be saved," he said.

A Home Office spokesman admitted that the immigration service had focused on removing failed asylum seekers but denied that this had diverted attention from criminals who were also illegal immigrants.

She said that more than 3,000 illegal immigrants who had committed crime were deported in 2004-05.

"The law is applied equally to those who offend, whether they are illegal immigrants or not.

"We do endeavour to deport at the end of prison sentences but sometimes this is not possible," she added.

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