British authorities failed to pass tens of thousands of European citizens' convictions back to their country of origin, as they should have, and then attempted to cover up the problem, the Guardian said on Wednesday. These embarrassing revelations about these snags in security cooperation come at a time when the United Kingdom must negotiate with the European Union on the terms of its relationship after Brexit, in particular on the judicial level and the exchange of information.
According to the daily, a computer problem in the police system has prevented the transmission of 75,000 files relating to convictions by British justice of nationals of European Union countries since 2015. This represents 30% of the convictions, some for rape or murder. Once the problem was detected, the authorities sought to cover the problem, the report of a meeting on the subject in May 2019 saying the Interior Ministry "nervous" about the idea of communicating the history of the convictions, according to the Guardian .
A similar report published a month later revealed that it was "still uncertain" that the missing files would be sent to the countries concerned, due to "risk to the reputation of the United Kingdom". Questioned by the daily, the liberal Dutch deputy Sophie in't Veld called for a European investigation, estimating that "the concealment after the fact questions the reliability of the United Kingdom as a partner".
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