Home Office official suspended in offender row

LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) A Home Office employee has been suspended in connection with an escalating row over the department's failure to enter criminals' details on the national police computer, a spokesman said today.

''An official at the Home Office has volunteered evidence in the last 48 hours which warrants disciplinary investigation,'' he said without elaborating. ''This official has been suspended pending further inquiry.'' The issue has piled pressure on Home Secretary John Reid and prompted opposition calls for an independent inquiry.

The row erupted on Tuesday when senior police said the details of more than 500 serious offenders who committed crimes overseas were not fed into the national police computer.

It raised fears that offenders, including murderers, rapists and paedophiles, may not have been identified in routine checks when seeking work with children or vulnerable adults.

The Observer newspaper said today that career criminal Dale Miller, 43, killed a man in Newcastle in 2000 after serving a sentence for armed robberies in Europe.

The Liberal Democrats and Conservatives said Reid had failed to protect the public.

But the Home Office rejected their criticism, saying Miller would not have been supervised even if his records had been updated because he had served his sentence abroad.

''Home Office incompetence has turned from farce to tragedy,'' said Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrats' Shadow Home Secretary.

His Conservative counterpart David Davis said nothing had changed at the Home Office since Reid's predecessor Charles Clarke was sacked over the bungled release of foreign prisoners.

''This tragedy demonstrates all too clearly the dire consequences of the government's failure to carry out its duty,'' Davis said. ''If this man had been under effective close supervision his victim may well have been alive today.'' The Home Office denied that suggestion, saying Miller served his sentence overseas and would not have been under supervision.

''Under the then rules, if you served a full sentence abroad, when you came back you weren't under probation,'' a spokesman said.

In a statement, Reid said further checks revealed that no violent or sexual offenders had slipped through the net to be offered work.

He said an internal inquiry into the affair was under way and should report back in six weeks.

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