Immigrants 'behind crime wave' - police

Claim by Britain's most senior officer sparks new asylum row

Kamal Ahmed, political editor
Sunday May 18, 2003
The Observer

The row over Britain's asylum policies took a new twist last night when Britain's most senior police officer claimed mass immigration has created a 'whole new range of crimes' threatening to overwhelm towns and cities across the country.
In comments which will spark a debate about whether genuine asylum seekers are being used as a cover for criminal gangs, Chris Fox, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said the mass movement of people around the world had brought new levels of organised crime, with drug dealing, gun offences, prostitution and kidnapping.

Claiming the numbers of asylum seekers coming to Britain had reached 'tidal wave' proportions, Fox said: 'Mass migration has brought with it a whole new range and a whole new type of crime, from the Nigerian fraudster, to the eastern European who deals in drugs and prostitution to the Jamaican concentration on drug dealing.'

'Add to that the home grown criminals and we have a whole different family of people who are competing to be in the organised crime world,' he said in an interview with The Observer ahead of Acpo's annual conference this week.

Fox said that he did not blame genuine asylum seekers, but some towns and cities were struggling to cope with the influx. 'The mass movement of people has made it worse. It is accepted that [if] people do move for security, safety and to avoid terror, among them there will be people who aren't moving for those purposes.

'Similarly, gangs see a chance to earn money by moving people and getting people into countries without going through all the checks.

'This mass movement brings with it the opportunity for criminals to move and to make money.'

In the wide ranging interview, the widely respected Fox also revealed that:


Many new officers on the beat were inexperienced and still learning the job. Forces too often were not getting the best performance from the recruits.

Police suffered from being set too many government targets.

Forces too often failed to think long term and sought too many hidebound short-term solutions.
Cyber crime was a growing problem, though new Home Office resources and better ways of working with other countries' police and Europol were helping.

Fox's comments on immigration, which will again put asylum at the top of the political agenda, echo those of a report by the influential House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee.

In an investigation into asylum published earlier this month, the committee said the large number of asylum seekers entering the country was threatening 'social unrest' and had to be curbed.

'Every time you get a new group you get more tension,' said Fox, who is chief constable of Northamptonshire. 'The eastern European, Afghanistan, Middle Eastern movement has had the most effect - it is such large numbers of people.

'If you think of where we were with asylum seekers two years ago, if you look at Sangatte [the Red Cross base near Calais which was a gathering point for British-bound refugees] and the movement there, it reached a high level, a tidal wave.'

He said new Home Office rules had helped stem the flow, but the jury 'was still out' on whether more needed to be done.

'My personal view is that this is a small island. We have some very, very intensely-populated areas and I think we have to be careful just how we let the mix develop,' he said.

'It's healthy that we've got lots of different people, but if you go into some of the cities, looking at the North, Bradford simmers, Blackburn simmers. It doesn't take much to disturb the balance, and I think we've got to be very careful to make sure that we're not overwhelming our current infrastructure.'

The British National Party won its first council seat in Blackburn at a by-election last autumn. Bradford has also suffered a series of riots linked to race in the summer of 2001.

The Government is expected to reveal fresh statistics this week which will show a rapid fall in the number of asylum applicants.