Click here to read the Home Office care home memo

Hundreds of illegal immigrants – including a suspected murderer and other criminals – are working in care homes in Britain, a leaked Home Office report has disclosed.

In some homes more than half the employees have entered the country illegally and are now being entrusted with caring for old and vulnerable people. The immigration intelligence report found that one illegal worker was a murder suspect from the Philippines and others had been involved in the “abuse and mistreatment” of elderly people.

The report, which was produced more than two years ago, warned that the problems were “widespread” and “significant”. But officials say its findings have been ignored.

“Very few of these cases are acted on,” one official said. “Ministers have turned a blind eye in the obscene interests of costs. These cases are not seen as a priority and most of them simply go to the bottom of the pile.”

The leak follows the fiasco last year when Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, admitted that more than 11,000 illegal immigrants had been cleared to work as security guards. It also comes as Gordon Brown prepares to launch his flagship UK Border Agency, which is designed to bolster the country’s protection from illegal immigrants, terrorists and other criminals.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: “The Home Office is turning a blind eye and allowing some of the most vulnerable people to be put in the care of people who by definition cannot have a criminal records check.”

The 22-page intelligence report examined 110 investigations into the employment of suspected illegal immigrants in care homes in the south and southwest of England.

The situation was so bad, the report notes, that “there is potential for embarrassment if the immigration service is not seen to be actively addressing this issue”. Many of the illegal workers were using false names and forged identity documents to bypass police criminal records checks. The suspected Filipino murderer had used fraudulent references to get a job at a care home in Plymouth.

The report discloses that Home Office ministers had failed to tackle the problem because most of the illegal care home workers were from countries such as Zimbabwe, Nigeria and South Africa, which were not on the priority list identifying those who should be targeted.

This restriction “does not allow the immigration service to take any form of action”, it says. Offenders are rarely brought to court because of a lack of resources. “There is no deterrent factor for those involved in these activities,” the report states.

One of the few prosecutions was a case in Nottingham in 2001 when an illegal immigrant was jailed for raping a woman in his care. The woman could not speak and had the mental ability of a three-year-old.

The report, which has been leaked by Whitehall officials exasperated that little has been done about the problem, reveals:

— that 58 of 113 employees of a firm running two homes in Hampshire and Wiltshire were suspected illegal offenders;

— that 36 of 58 people at a Southampton care agency were working illegally, mostly using fake identity papers;

— and that 22 of 55 foreign nationals who applied for employment through a Salisbury agency were immigration offenders

The document says the proliferation of untrained and unqualified illegal migrants, many with unknown backgrounds, poses a direct risk to some of the estimated 480,000 elderly and vulnerable people in the 21,000 care homes in England and Wales.

It states: “The severity of the reported incidents varies, ranging from care workers not being suitably qualified, to the abuse of clients within their care.

If this is allowed to continue without action all have the potential to be damaging to the public and media perception of the immigration service.”

Mark Hammond, of the PCS union, which represents 2,000 immigration officials, said: “This report exposes the government’s big lie. There are not enough resources to enforce immigration law because of budgetary constraints and activity is set to decrease not increase, due to cuts in duties scheduled for weekends. Vitally important work won’t be actioned and vulnerable people will be at risk.”

The report found that there were so many illegal immigrants in two care homes in Bristol that a proposed operation at Christmas by the Home Office to arrest them was cancelled because it would have involved the removal of the majority of staff.

The Home Office feared there would be “negative publicity” if it was held responsible for leaving old people without care.

Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said controls had been tightened up since the report. “Every visa applicant is now fingerprinted before they reach here, ID cards become compulsory for all foreign nationals from November and £10,000 on-the-spot fines are now in place for any illegal workers.”

The report, however, blames government policy for the lack of action. “The predominant nationalities identified working illegally within the care industry do not necessarily correspond with current national priorities for enforcement action,” it says.

Times Recommends

• How I lost the gift of joy for a while
• Why Ann Widdecombe has got it wrong
• Alas, it’s the end of the road for petrolheads