Court alarm over record gaps

Glaring gaps in police records of criminals' previous convictions have been exposed at London courts, it can be revealed today.

The omissions, which have affected cases involving violent criminals and sex offenders, only came to light because probation officers had personal knowledge of the defendants. The cases included:

A man charged with drug offences, whose previous sentence of 10 years for importation and supply did not show up on his record

* A man convicted of two separate attacks on women, whose previous sexual convictions were not detailed

* A 40-year-old appearing on theft charges, who had at least two armed robbery convictions missing from his record

* A defendant on domestic violence charges, whose conviction for incest was not on the books

The errors come on top of a succession of official reports casting doubt on the integrity of data on the Police National Computer.

And they raise fresh concerns about the reliability of the vetting procedures carried out by the new Criminal Records Bureau to prevent unsuitable people working with children.

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, said: "These cases were only spotted by luck because probation officers knew the defendants. I don't believe probation officers are catching every single case, so there must be others where the court does not get the full picture and people are released on bail when they shouldn't be, or sentenced when their records are incomplete."

Scotland Yard said it had made significant progress in updating records on previous convictions. So far, more than 90,000 errors have been corrected for active criminals, and 7,000 are said to be outstanding.

A spokesman said: "We are hoping to bring the number outstanding to zero by the end of this year."

But there are still concerns about the pace at which records are updated.

Earlier this year a Metropolitan Police survey showed no cases were being updated on the Police National Computer within 28 days of conviction. And there are doubts about the credibility of records from the Eighties that were transferred from a previous computer system.

The London findings have serious implications for the work of the Criminal Records Bureau, which has been beset by backlogs that threw the start of the school term into chaos because staff could not be cleared in time.

Plans for basic checks on all employees have now been postponed. But Mr Fletcher warned: "Once the Criminal Records Bureau comes to roll out the certificates, thousands will have mistakes."

The Evening Standard has learned internal studies, carried out for the Home Office, show two out of every 100 checks contain mistakes on previous convictions.

While that means 98 per cent of records can be seen as reliable, it is accepted that in thousands of cases every year the agency will be using false information that will either blacken the names of innocent people or let people with convictions slip through the net.

A Home Office spokesman said: "There have been huge improvements but there are always going to be potential gaps, and we know it only takes one case to cause problems."