Charles Clarke, the UK's home secretary, was under intense pressure to resign on Friday night after he admitted that five foreign prisoners released by the Home Office have committed further serious offences, including possession of illegal drugs, violent disorder, grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm.
A frantic police trawl concentrating on the 79 wrongly freed prisoners guilty of the most serious offences has also unearthed that two of the released men are now the subject of serious allegations, in one case for serious sexual assault and in another for rape.
One of the five already found guilty of reoffending was also tried for rape, but the case was unproven with the offence left on the individual's file pending further investigation.
At the end of a torrid week for the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the home secretary insisted he would brazen out the renewed calls for him to stand aside for failing in his primary duty to protect the public.
In an attempt to show he had got a belated grip on his department, Clarke revealed that deportation cases are to start in 63 of the 79 cases. But so far only six of the prisoners have actually been arrested pending deportation.
A search has has not even started on the nearly 1,000 foreign prisoners released by the Home Office since 1999 without considering the case for deportation. The government has no idea if they have reoffended or what offences they may have committed. Clarke was unable to disclose the precise whereabouts of any of the 79 serious offenders although he said all had been on the police national computer, including their most recent addresses.
Urgent searches are now under way to locate the remaining serious offenders.
The home secretary said the offences committed by those who had reoffended were not murder or rape and that "they were not at the top of the danger tree." He added: "It is a bad state of affairs and very regrettable" but insisted he was the man to oversee the Home Office in the process of dramatic change.
"The truth is that real and profound change does take time and often reveals matters that have been hidden or lay dormant in an organization. The genuine shortcomings which have been revealed in dealing with foreign prisoners will be repaired and we will learn the lesson to make whatever further changes are necessary," he said.
But the shadow (opposition) home secretary, David Davis, said that Clarke had to quit, a view backed by two opinion polls published last night.
Davis said: "This reinforces the need for Clarke to go -- the very fact that he knew of this major failure is cause enough. What this has done is exactly a reversal of what the Home Office's job is: to protect the safety of the public. What has happened as a result of this massive failure is to make the risk to the public greater."
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