Prove you haven’t broken law in 10 years to live in UK

Tougher checks for migrants … but only if they’re from outside EU

FOREIGNERS who want to move to Britain must prove they have not committed a crime for ten years under new measures to tighten up the country’s borders.

Migrants from outside the EU applying for a visa will have to show they have had a criminal records check or face a ban on entering the UK. Ministers are determined to prevent serious and violent criminals from being given a visa to get into Britain.

But crucially, the system will not apply to individuals from inside the EU. It means border officials would not have picked up Arnis Zalkalns, the Latvian builder who last year murdered 14-year-old schoolgirl Alice Gross in Hanwell, West London.

The 41-year- old had been convicted of battering his wife to death in his homeland but came to the UK in 2007 without the authorities checking his past.

Under the new scheme, non-EU migrants wanting to move to the UK to live or work will be forced to produce a criminal checks certificate from the authorities in any country they have spent at least a year in over the previous decade.

The police certificate will disclose whether they have a clean record or have committed offences.

Those unable to provide proof will have their visa refused, and those found to have lied on their application form will be banned from entering the UK for ten years.

Initially, the Home Office will carry out a trial of the measure on investors and entrepreneurs applying for what is known as a Tier 1 visa and their spouses or adult children. Last year, it issued 6,354 permits under these categories.

The requirement will come into force on September 1 and, if successful, will be extended to cover other groups, including students and skilled workers.

Immigration minister James Brokenshire said: ‘Foreign criminals have no place in the United Kingdom and this scheme will help keep them out. Mandatory police certificates will serve as an additional tool to help us achieve this.’

More than 2.4million visas were issued last year, including 167,000 for work, 222,000 for study and 34,000 to join families already in the UK. People arriving on visitor visas – 1.9mil-

‘Help keep foreign

criminals out’

lion last year – or those from 56 countries and territories which do not need visas will not need to provide their criminal histories because this would be ‘disproportionate’ in terms of time, cost and bureaucracy.

Introducing a police certificate requirement for some visa applicants will close a loophole in the existing arrangements.

Currently, all applicants are checked against a Home Office warnings index that flags up those who are wanted for serious crimes. Those aged five and over are matched against fingerprint databases.

But there are no routine checks of criminal activity overseas. The new system will exempt children aged under 18, asylum seekers and those people who it is not ‘reasonably practicable’ to check because of problems collecting the information or data restrictions.

Those who are unable to obtain a certificate will be asked to provide a letter detailing attempts to obtain one and explaining why this has not been possible.

Ministers have taken action following a series of scandals. One involved immigration officials wrongly allowing convicted criminal Al Amin Dhalla, 44, into the country after he had obtained a British visa under false pretences. Dhalla, a Canadian, was convicted in 2012 of stalking and harassing ex-girlfriend Alison Hewitt with a crossbow and air rifle and setting fire to her mother’s home. He was jailed for a minimum of six years and faces deportation when he is freed.

He launched his campaign of hate after Miss Hewitt’s family discovered he had lied about his past by not declaring on his visa application that he had a conviction for violence.

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