Man believed to have murdered Alice Gross walked into Britain unchecked
The man believed to have murdered Alice Gross walked into Britain unchecked despite having a conviction in his native Lativia for murdering his wife.
The inquest into the death of the schoolgirl was also told that when Arnis Zalkalns was arrested in London in 2009 for an alleged sexual assault police did not check if he had a criminal record.
Zalkalns who came to Britain in 2007 is alleged to have killed 14 year old Alice before dumping her body in the river Brent.
He was found hanged in Boston Manor Park four days after her body was discovered by police divers. The CPS said the 41-year-old builder would have been charged with Alice’s murder had he been alive.
The hearing was told it was not "mandatory" to carry out criminal record checks when Zalkalns was arrested in 2009. and that no automatic check would have been made on him coming across the UK border.
Even when Zalkalns was identified as a suspect in Alice’s murder an ACRO check came up negative on his record from Latvia because the conviction was deemed 'spent' in his home country.
More rigorous measures have now been put bin place and from February this year electronic checks on foreign nationals are carried out when they're arrested and booked in at a police station.