Juozas Kancauskas.

FOUR of the region’s MEPs have vowed to push for the closure of a loophole which allows foreign criminals to enter the UK without declaring their convictions to the authorities.

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Vicky Ford, Richard Howitt, Robert Sturdy and Stuart Agnew have all said they will be raising the issue with the European Parliament after the EADT revealed that a man with a rape conviction in Germany in 2006 was allowed to live in Suffolk without notifying police of his record.

Mrs Ford, Conservative, said she had already been in contact yesterday morning with party colleagues on the justice committee to press for change.

She said: “This is something that my colleagues from the UK Conservatives have been raising in Europe for decades.

“We have a principal in the UK which says if you have committed a certain level of serious crime in the past you we will keep you on that register.

“It has been raised, we have put it on the agenda and what happens is there are technical issues and human rights issues.”

She said the idea that offenders could just “jump on a ferry and lose all that history” and reinvent themselves was not acceptable and that information should be shared between EU countries.

The EADT revealed yesterday that rapist Jouzas Kancauskas was allowed to enter the country and live in Suffolk without police knowing because neither he nor the German authorities were obliged to declare his conviction.

Kancauskas, of Fore Hamlet, Ipswich, is only on the Sex Offenders’ Register today as a result of a police officer making a thorough check of his background when the Lithuanian national was arrested for a less serious offence.

Although the UK has a Sex Offenders’ Register, other European states do not. Because Kancauskas was convicted in Germany, the UK authorities were unaware of his past offences.

He has now been placed on the UK Sex Offenders’ Register for life.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The UK Border Agency holds a watch list of international intelligence drawn from a variety of sources, including the police. The system is used by UK Border Agency staff for the purposes of national security and the detection and prevention of crime.

“We will not accept foreign criminals breaking UK laws, which is why Europeans who commit serious offences will be automatically considered for deportation.”

Richard Howitt, a Labour MEP for the east of England, said it was an “absolutely unacceptable” situation.

He said: “I will urgently see in the European Parliament if changes of law are needed.

“This case shows how important it is that our police forces work together and share information for the mutual protection of all.”

UKIP MEP Stuart Agnew said the case epitomised the “enormous mess” the country was in over immigration because of its membership of the EU but he feared any changes in legislation would be some way off.

He said: “Since the European Commission is the sole originator of all new EU legislation and any fresh proposals would be subject to the approval of MEPs from Eastern European countries, including Lithuania, I am not confident that anything can be done to deal with this loophole.

“However, the present situation is totally unacceptable and I will be doing my best, along with my UKIP colleagues, to press for change but, for me, the only long term solution is for us to leave the EU and regain full control of our borders.”

Tory MEP Robert Sturdy added: “The perpetrators of serious crimes should not be able to brush off their past simply by hopping on a ferry to England. We have a right to know what sort of person is living alongside us.”