International Criminal Checks – How to know who you are hiring

How can you be sure the professional you are entrusting to do their job is exactly who they say they are and have the necessary experience? When dealing with professionals who were born and brought up in the UK, you can be fairly sure that the necessary checks, history and qualifications are verified. But when dealing with foreign nationals, how can we be sure their country of origin has the same record keeping standards when it comes to criminal history, qualifications and experience. While the vast majority or foreign workers entering the UK are law abiding and honest, there are a select few who have caused untold suffering due to the lack of verifiable history and dishonesty. Two examples will be analysed where minimal screening resulted in a tragic loss of life, followed by recommendations on how you or your company can properly screen individuals in order to avoid these mistakes happening again via international criminal checks.

Open borders: Who is entering the country?

The workforce of the 21^st Century is now truly global with an increasing number of individuals from both European and non-European countries seeking employment in the UK. The vast majority of the applicants who come to the UK are law abiding citizens who fill much needed and essential job roles that cover both skilled and non-skilled services. But while there is a need for a fresh influx of qualified, genuine workers who are seeking new opportunities, there are others who have chosen to take advantage of the EU open border policy and slack background screening processes for non-EU citizens.  These people are able to avoid in-depth checks on criminal activity and qualifications, allowing them in some case to take on roles for which they are unsuitable or unqualified.

With the DBS and Disclosure Scotland only able to check records held in the UK, employers need to be aware that they should check the history from the applicant’s country of origin as well as any country where the individual has travelled to for any length of time. When looking at the difficulty in confirming history and the potentially long time-frame involved when conducting a background check within the EU and non-EU, we can see how these checks can be easily circumnavigated due to either time-frame limits or with false records and undisclosed spent convictions.

Loop-hole closed

There are many different ways to work legally in Britain, with a popular option being a T1 visa – intended for entrepreneurs and investors, but from September 2015 immigrants from outside  Europe who came to Britain via a T1 visa are now required to provide details of their criminal records for every country they have lived in for the last 10 years. If they fail to provide this information, they can be refused entry into Britain under new measures introduced by the Government. However, while this visa path is now closed to some outside the EU, these checks do not apply to anyone coming into Britain from the European Union, who enjoy “free movement” rights to enter the country.

Mistakes and their tragic consequences

While efforts are being made to increase security, these safety checks would not have prevented the arrival into Britain of 41-year-old Latvian Arnis Zalkains in 2007, who later murdered 14-year-old schoolgirl Alice Gross. Zalkains was allowed into the country despite having previously served seven years for murdering his wife in Latvia.

At the time, Det Supt Michael Forteath said, there was “no routine checking of individuals entering the UK”. Though there were systems in place to ask for records, information and intelligence from a suspect’s country of origin, such checks were only done on around 1 in 14 suspects. In September 2014, after Arnis Zalkalns had become a suspect in Alice Gross’ disappearance, an initial check of his Latvian records came back clean due to the fact that his murder conviction was considered “spent” in his home country of Latvia.

However, even with the extra checks in place, which would hopefully prevent a situation like this happening again, not every country has the equivalent of the UK’s Disclosure and Barring Service. The lack of an equivalent body in their native country would allow individuals an exemption or partial exemption from the UK’s law as long as they could provide evidence that they have made efforts to undergo a criminal record check.

The NHS reliance on foreign skills and the risks involved

The NHS (the UK’s largest employer – 1.2 million total) employs significant numbers of foreign staff. Without its 57,000 EU national workers, the NHS would be unable to function. With more than 7,000 working as consultants or specialist registrars and more than 21,000 working as nurses and health visitors the NHS is hugely dependent on foreign workers coming into Britain. However, the lack of comprehensive screening services means that people can sometimes slip through the net. In 2015 Georgian national Levon Mkhitarian made headlines after he managed to secure employment with the NHS for over two and a half years, falsely claiming he was registered to practice as a doctor. Due to the lack of thorough checks on locum doctors within the NHS, he was free to treat more than 3,000 patients before suspicions were raised about his credentials and ability. He managed to escape detection for so long by creating a fake CV in the name of a local doctor, along with fake bank statements, energy bills and a letter from a medical surgery, committing fraud and practicing medicine despite being barred from doing so by the GMC. Cases such as these highlight the need for a more robust and effective check on the qualifications and training of those who seek to work as health care professionals within the NHS.

The European Professional Card: Less checks for medical professionals?

Under new EU mandate rules thousands of European doctors and nurses could be given NHS jobs without first undergoing checks on their qualifications and competence. The European Professional Card (EPC) will give doctors and nurses the right to work in hospitals and GP surgeries in the UK automatically. The EPC was introduced in 2016 and can also be used by pharmacists, physiotherapists, mountain guides and estate agents from EU and EEA member states who wish to work in another member state. The EPC comprises of an electronic certificate which simplifies the recognition procedure. It will become active for Doctors seeking to work in the UK in 2018, though due to the recent BREXIT vote, it is unclear if this policy will still become law within the UK until such time as Article 50 is negotiated and enacted.

Almost 11 per cent of doctors currently working in the UK were first registered in another European country. Understandably the issue of EPC raises concerns with many. There is of course the vital importance of doctors being able to speak English to a necessary standard. The mistakes that can arise due to poor English were highlighted in the case of Dr Daniel Ubani, a German citizen who, in his first GP locum posting in the UK unlawfully killed 70-year-old David Gray with a lethal dose of 100mg of diamorphine – 10 times the recommended maximum dose after confusing it for another drug when treating Mr Gray in his own home as an out of hours GP.

If the EPC is enacted, the new rules mean UK regulators will give Doctors a licence to practise without first checking they have the necessary qualifications and have not lied on forms or been suspended from practicing. It will also mean that NHS Hospitals will not be allowed to test doctors on how well they speak English as this is classed as impeding their right to freedom of movement. This would essentially leave British Health Authorities at the mercy of other EU countries to check their own doctors and nurses to the necessary standard. The EPC allows for only a two-month window to verify if the training and experience listed on a medical professional’s CV is truthful and correct, potentially meaning that should the deadline be missed, a passport will be issued automatically, regardless of whether checks for medical wrongdoing or poor care have been established, leaving the Doctor free to secure employment in the UK.

Improving safety through better background screening

Employers need to understand that the ability to access the same information across borders can be limited and that every country’s screening process is different. Criminal records, data management, technology and access to public records vary across the world and can present significant challenges to obtaining a comprehensive background check. Additionally, many countries have privacy laws that differ and can limit what information can be obtained. We take extra steps to research various country regulations and requirements, particularly in light of all the data intelligence accessed to ensure utmost accuracy to help you make well-informed recruitment decisions.

Given the complexities of international screening, CBS understand how important this issue is. As such we have developed strong cross-border relationships and have access to criminal data from across the globe. We work with a number of partners and overseas organisations to promptly obtain criminal information from over 250 EU and Non-EU countries across the world. As the first national provider approved by the Disclosure and Barring Service to add multiple languages to support those for whom English is not their first language, we pride ourselves on our agility, accessibility, accuracy and speed of service, with 92% of our international criminal disclosures returned within two weeks.

Contact us now for more information.