HOME OFFICE - They Have Refused to Apologize!

Why is this article relevant to the AA-1177 blog? In order to force an independent external inquiry we must provide some simple examples of government departments in action, which prove they can not be trusted in Word and Deed. In the 21st century it is Intent, NOT Incompetence/Negligence.

Branded as Criminals...but not Terrorists
21st May 2006

Nearly 1,500 innocent people have been wrongly branded as criminals by the Home Office, leading to them losing jobs or being barred from taking up courses.

In an extraordinary series of blunders, law-abiding citizens ranging from court ushers to teenage students have been labelled pornographers, thieves and violent robbers by the department's Criminal Records Bureau.

Victims have to suffer the indignity of going to their local police station to be fingerprinted in order to prove they are not criminals.

And incredibly the Home Office initially refused to apologise for this latest fiasco - and instead blamed the victims for having similar names and dates of birth to convicted criminals.

The 1,500 figure also represents only those who have successfully appealed in the past two years - suggesting that hundreds or even thousands more may have been wrongly labelled criminals without even knowing.

'Not our fault'
Despite its refusal to accept the blame for the latest blunder, the Home Office has quietly made a string of compensation payments to the people it has wrongly branded criminals.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis last night lambasted the Home Office and said the fiasco added to the growing sense that the Government had simply lost control of the department.

"Every one of these errors could lead to an injustice and is therefore a disgrace,' he said. 'The fact that this Government admits to nearly 1,500 mistakes is very worrying because these reflect only the errors they have discovered, not ones where the injustice may have gone unnoticed."


Read More :
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=387064&in_page_id=1770