Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what procedures are in place to ensure that the police make prosecutors aware of the overseas criminal convictions of (a) foreign and (b) UK citizens appearing in court for the purposes of bail and sentencing.

The Criminal Procedure Rules place the responsibility for alerting the court to any defendant’s previous convictions, both domestic and overseas, whether for the purposes of bail or for the purposes of sentencing, on the prosecutor. Courts must give consideration to that information when it is available but rely on the Police to obtain and provide it.

In the last five years, the Government has made huge progress in requesting and obtaining criminal record data from other countries about foreign nationals who are arrested in the UK. Since 2010 checks on foreign nationals going through the UK criminal justice system have increased by nearly 1,500%, helping us to take more foreign criminals off our streets and making our communities safer.

Work is under way to improve processes used by the police when relaying overseas convictions to prosecutors. Digitisation of these processes will enable officers to flag up whether a check has been completed and whether detained persons have any overseas convictions. To assist the courts, the Government will shortly be providing guidance to Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service on obtaining and using overseas conviction data in criminal proceedings.

The ACRO Criminal Records Office has also been looking to improve access to the overseas convictions of UK nationals convicted abroad and, where appropriate, this information is placed onto the Police National Computer so that it is available in the event that the subject appears before the courts.