CRB mistakes devastate lives, admits minister
By Christopher Hope - Senior Political Correspondent
ERRORS by the Criminal Records Bureau is having a "devastating" impact on the lives of innocent people, a Home Office minister has admitted.
The comments from Lynne Featherstone, a Lib Dem MP, are the first indication that the problem of officials mixing up criminal record certificates is being taken seriously by the Government.
The Daily Telegraph has persistently highlighted the issue.
According to the Home Office agency's annual report, more than 170 people were given someone else's criminal record by mistake last year. Most errors involved two people with the same name.
Many of the innocent victims of the mistakes would have been intending to take up jobs as teachers, nurses and child minders, or become youth volunteers.
In a letter to Madeleine Moon, a Labour MP, Miss Featherstone said the mistakes, which happened for many years under the previous government, "can be devastating".
Last night David Ruffley, a Conservative MP, said: "We need a CRB system to protect children. But it is not protecting innocent citizens who are branded as criminals because of bureaucratic incompetence.
Where it is human error or dodgy IT, the minister needs to fix it."
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