A shocking revelation in the UK....

I wonder if we are any better!

More than 1,000 convicted foreign criminals, including killers, rapists and child abusers, have been freed from prison without being considered for deportation and hundreds are missing, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, admitted yesterday.

All of the prisoners had committed crimes that should have triggered automatic assessment for removal from the country and the majority should have expected to be expelled.

About 160 were released without being considered for removal despite explicit recommendations by judges that they should be deported at the end of their sentences.

Such is the chaos in the system for dealing with "foreign national prisoners" that Home Office officials were unable to say last night whether they had found three foreign murderers - who should be on life-long licence - nine rapists and five paedophiles among the 1,023 prisoners released since 1999.