UK Edition
An investigation has been launched by the British Transport Police after it failed to record a teenager’s knife mugging convictions, leaving a murder trial unaware of his previous criminality.
The young man was cleared of murder by an Old Bailey jury after 27 hours of delibeartion last month, but convicted of carrying a knife.
However the court, including the defendant's lawyers, were not aware of the 17-year-old’s two previous convictions for muggings on trains in February 2019 due to the “human error” by the British Transport Police.
A British Transport Police spokesperson said: “We can confirm we’ve launched a full internal investigation in response to two convictions not being uploaded to the Police National Computer (PNC) as they should have been.
“After being made aware of the error, we were able to quickly correct it to ensure the PNC records were fully updated in time for sentencing.
“While we are confident this was a one off human error, we’re now conducting an urgent review to confirm no other cases have similar issues, and are putting in processes to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
Judge Wendy Joseph said it was “beyond her” that British Transport Police convictions didn’t go on the Police National Computer.
Judge Joseph told the court: “I am disappointed that a whole trial took place with three people, (prosecutor, defendant's barrister and judge) who should have known what was going on, but none of them knew.
“I don't criticise the defendant, it's not his job.I don't want this to happen in another case. “I want to know where the system went wrong and I would like to ensure that it won't happen again.”