THE mother of a woman killed by a foreign national with violent history in his own country has called for tighter cross-border controls after the conviction of an immigrant with a criminal past murdered a Scots pensioner.

 

Bea Jones, 73, said the killing of her daughter Moira Jones in Glasgow could have been avoided if Latvian Marek Harcar had been prevented from entering the UK because of his violent history.

The mother of the businesswoman whose body was found in Queen's Park in 2008 said tighter restrictions may also have had a bearing on the case of Eleanor Whitelaw, 85, of Edinburgh, whose Polish killer Robert Buczek had a previous conviction in his native country and was out on bail here for a knife offence.

Buczek is facing a life sentence after being found found guilty at the High Court in Glasgow of killing Mrs Whitelaw in her Morningside home last July.

Mrs Jones said she is also in contact with Elsie Giudici from Rutherglen, the mother of Mark Giudici, 42, who was killed in his Toryglen home by Polish national Marek Kepczynski, 45, in 2013.

Kepczynski, sentenced to 14 years last year, also had a violent past.

Harcar, a Slovakian who had 13 previous criminal convictions, four of which involved violence, was sentenced to life in 2009.

She said: "Until all the member states of EU have it in their domestic law it is going to be slow to change.

"It (to have international disclosure in domestic law) would make risk assessments possible and a decision could then be made on sharing the information with other countries."

Disclosure Scotland, the body that provides background checks for employers, has only limited access to information on foreign nationals with violent histories.

John Scott, QC, who specialises in human rights cases, said that information sharing across borders is to be welcomed but travel enforcement could be problematic.

In the case of Buczek, his offence involved a woman in her eighties but happened when he was 14.

Mr Scott said: "In terms of more and better information about people into the country being available, it is difficult to argue with that.

"There should be more done to try and and ensure consistency on whether something is recorded, what is recorded and what is used."

Britain has just agreed to sign up to access a pool of European data on tens of thousands of wanted criminals, missing people and national security alerts, the Second Generation Schengen Information System.

But Rutherglen MP Tom Greatrex, who called for a ban on foreign national with violent histories entering the UK and raised Mark Giudici's case in Westminster, said this is just "one tool" that should be used to make more information available.

A spokesman for Disclosure Scotland said: "Disclosure Scotland facilitate criminal history checks - as part of this process we, as an organisation, have access to the UK Police systems.

"Broadly speaking the Criminal History System has criminal convictions pertained to Scotland with the Police National Computer holding information from the rest of the UK.

"It is therefore unlikely that convictions in relation to incidents held at foreign courts would appear on these systems.

"There may, however, be occasions where someone has committed a crime within the EU and it is decided that information in relation to such offences is recorded on UK systems.

"In cases where an offence has been committed in an applicant's country of origin, Disclosure Scotland do not readily have access to the foreign convictions unless it is recorded on the UK Police systems, unfortunately Disclosure Scotland has no jurisdiction over the information added to UK Police systems.

"In cases where foreign convictions are recorded on the above noted UK Police systems such information can appear on a disclosure certificate based on the level being applied for. "

South of the border, David Winnick MP, member of the Home Affairs Select Committee, has demanded immigration minister James Brokenshire explain how Alice Gross murder suspect Arnis Zalkalns was allowed into the UK after serving a seven-year jail term for the murder of his wife.