TAGGED criminals convicted of assault and burglary are breaking their home curfews unhindered, in some cases illegally staying out for hundreds of hours.

Flaws in the tagging system, created in its current form in 1999 to reduce Britain’s prison population, have been exposed in the internal records of a monitoring centre run by Group 4 Securicor. The company is responsible for overseeing most of the 11,000 tagged offenders.

The records for one centre covering the East Midlands show that 600 criminals, two-thirds of the number managed by the centre and many with convictions for violence, had breached their curfews.

Others had apparently been able to accrue many hours of violations before staff investigated.

Home Office figures show that offenders let out of jail early under the home detention curfew scheme may have been responsible for more than 7,000 crimes since January 1999. There were 833 cases of violence, 337 burglaries, 100 robberies and 18 sexual offences.

The evidence obtained by The Sunday Times indicates that in many cases the authorities have no idea of the whereabouts of offenders.

The investigation found:

This weekend the Home Office admitted there were shortcomings in the way private companies dealt with curfew violations. But Group 4 Securicor defended its record and accused the courts of undermining the system. Paul Moonan, director of electronic monitoring, blamed the courts for failing to punish violations.

He admitted offenders were “taking the mickey” by going missing for days on end. But once an offender was summoned to court, being in breach of his tagging conditions would not add to his punishment.

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