Child sexual abuse suspect walks free for more than six months without an electronic tag due to an IT error
- Suspect charged with child abuse crimes and kidnapping was awaiting trial
A child abuse suspect avoided an electronic tag for more than six months because a controversial IT system collapsed, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The suspect, who was also charged with kidnapping, was one of 35 people convicted or awaiting trial for serious crimes who were on the loose when a £300m digital case management system failed to send reports to criminal authorities.
It is the latest disaster to befall the controversial Common Platform system that has reportedly lost and altered files of files, creating chaos at a time when criminal courts are facing file delays.
Last year, officials from the Public and Commercial Services Union, whose members include legal advisers and clerks at magistrates’ courts, said the system was “so flawed it almost seems like it has a mind of its own.”
The latest outage showed that more than 300 unsent messages may have “influenced the consequences of justice”.
Image shows an electronic monitoring tag system, similar to the one that would have been used to track the suspect’s location while awaiting trial
A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) said: ‘In 35 cases a person was not equipped with an electronic surveillance tag when they should have been.’
In addition to the suspected child molester, one person charged with manslaughter was left untouched for 36 days.
Others, on several counts of assault, grievous bodily harm and stalking with fear of violence, all escaped being tagged for a month or more.
Separately, one person convicted of threatening behavior and willful harassment was not tagged for 84 days.
Another, convicted of assaulting an aid worker and carrying a knife, remained untouched for 15 days.
The problem lasted from June 2021 to August last year. HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) had to pause the rollout of the software for two weeks while the issues were investigated.
“The system could not cope with the volume of reports,” the NAO report said. “HMCTS has since conducted a comprehensive review, recommending that it work with partners to identify a more robust mechanism for exchanging data in lieu of the current email route.”
The NAO said the system was introduced “before it was ready,” putting “an additional burden on courts when they were already under pressure.”
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said the Common Platform debacle had “put avoidable pressure on the courts at a critical time.”
He added that the HMCTS should also get “value for money from the £1.3bn” [of public money] it has invested’.
The Justice Department said: “No criminal offenses have been reported by the 35 defendants who have temporarily not been tagged.”
The Justice Department said no criminal offenses have been reported by those temporarily untagged
Last month’s NAO report said the common platform is not popular with staff. As a result, it caused ‘stress’ and is sometimes seen as ‘an obstacle to the proper conduct of pending litigation’.
A legal adviser who stepped down over Common Platform issues, after working in the justice system for more than 20 years, told The Mail on Sunday: “The rollout was a disaster.
‘The main problem was that test results would simply disappear from the system. This is completely unacceptable. This is a problem when people have orders issued against them, such as not contacting people.
“There was a nationwide mistake for a while where anyone placed on remand was automatically at risk of suicide – which is inconvenient for prison staff and expensive.
“Because things we would enter, such as results or orders against people, would disappear, or the system would crash and lose the information entered, we had to start over.
‘So what emerged from the NAO report does not surprise me at all.
“I’m willing to bet that what the report says is just the tip of the iceberg — and it will continue to cause similar problems, endangering public safety.”