Border controls damage unknown, says May

Head of the UK border force Brodie Clark and two other officials have been suspended after border guards were told not to bother checking fingerprints and other personal details against a Home Office database of terror suspects and illegal immigrants.

Mrs May told MPs those responsible would be punished as she announced a series of inquiries into the scandal.

She said while Ministers had started a pilot project “targeting intelligence-led checks on higher-risk” passengers, Mr Clark “authorised the wider relaxation of border controls without ministerial sanction” this summer.

“As a result of these unauthorised actions, we will never know how many people entered the country who should have been prevented from doing so after being flagged by the warnings index,” she said.

Under the pilot scheme, European children, “travelling with their parents or as part of a school group, would be checked against the warnings index – designed to detect terrorists and serious criminals – when assessed by a border force official to be a credible risk”, Mrs May said.

“The pilot also allowed, under limited circumstances, border force officials the discretion to judge when to open the biometric chip – which contains a second photograph and no further information – on the passports of EEA nationals.”

Last Wednesday, Mr Clark confirmed to Rob Whiteman, the UKBA chief executive, that “border controls had been relaxed without Ministerial approval”.

Biometric checks on European nationals and warnings index checks on children from the EU “were abandoned on a regular basis, without Ministerial approval”, Mrs May said.

She did not consent to or authorise this, she told MPs.

Comment: Page 10.