Britain could become more attractive to foreign criminals after the UK leaves the EU, one of the country’s most senior police officers has warned.

Steve Ashman, chief constable of Northumbria police, dismissed the argument of many of those who campaigned to leave the bloc that Britain’s departure would lead to a reduction in foreign criminals operating in the UK.

He added that he would be very concerned if Brexit meant UK police could no longer apply for a European arrest warrant (EAW) or have access to surveillance and information-sharing systems from their European counterparts.



Europol chief says Brexit would harm UK crime-fighting Read more

“I think if you lose the ability to extradite people effectively then one might also argue that that’s going to make us quite attractive to a particular criminal group,” he told the Guardian.



“I think we are always going to have a problem with foreign national offenders. What’s important to me – and, I think, what’s important for UK law enforcement – is that we have effective and efficient means of dealing with them when they are here. Because I think we are dreaming if we think the position is ever going to be arrived at when there are no foreign national offenders in this country.”

Asked if he could see any policing benefits to Brexit, Ashman paused for 18 seconds and said: “There’s your answer.”

Much of his force area, which serves a population of 1.5 million people and covers an area of more than 2,000 square miles in the north-east, voted to leave the EU. Only Newcastle, with its large student population, voted to stay, by a narrow 1% margin.

Ashman said the government must acknowledge that membership of the EU had brought real policing benefits: “We have benefited from our access to information from our European counterparts, our ability to form joint investigation teams where you have cross-border criminal behaviour and our ability to secure European arrest warrants.”

“[These] are clearly working and have worked for a number of years. I would have some real concerns if we were to walk away from or tear up those agreements,” he said.

Europe is safer when we join forces to beat crime Read more

The EAW, which came into operation in 2004, allows for the speedy extradition of suspects from one European country to another to face trial or serve a prison sentence. More than 900 suspected serious criminals, including paedophiles, rapists and murderers, have been extradited either in or out of this country, thanks to the EAW. The mechanism was used in the case of Hussain Osman, who was wanted in connection with the 21 July 2005 attempted London bombings. Extradited from Italy in September 2005, he was subsequently sentenced to a minimum term of imprisonment of 40 years.

In September the home secretary Amber Rudd was asked what discussions she had had with her international counterparts on the UK’s continued participation in the EAW. She said: “Officials are exploring options for future cooperation arrangements once the UK has left the European Union. We will do what is necessary to keep people safe, but it would be wrong to set out unilateral positions before that negotiation has taken place.”

Ashman said he was not surprised that the north-east voted to leave. “It is a matter of fact that we are a long way from London – we are further than anyone from London – and it is very easy to see why communities here have become quite disaffected with government and that’s irrespective of which colour government it is. But in particular, in recent years, the public service cuts that have been suffered here are far, far, far worse than anywhere else in the country. So as the chief constable of the sixth largest force in England and Wales, I’ve taken the biggest hit because we were the most heavily dependent upon the government grant.”

Northumbria police saw a sharp rise in reports of religious or racially motivated race crime after the Brexit vote. Internal force statistics shared exclusively with the Guardian show that in Sunderland, which voted 61.3% in favour of Brexit, there was a 50% increase in racist/faith crimes recorded from 24 June, the day after the vote, to 21 November. This year there were 132 such crimes, compared with 88 in the same period in 2015.

National anti-hate crime campaign to launch after spike in incidents Read more

Three times as many eastern Europeans reported abuse: 27, compared with nine in 2015. People of Afro-Caribbean and Asian origin also reported more hate crimes than last year (14 and 42 respectively, compared with 10 and 36 in 2015).

Examples of these crimes included a Polish woman and her son being told “go back to Poland”; a foreign national being told “why are you here? We’re out of Europe now” after challenging someone who pushed in a queue; and the word “Paki” being scratched into the paintwork of a convenience store.



Just 3.6% of Sunderland residents were born outside the UK, according to the 2011 census. But Michal Chantowski, a Pole who runs the International Community Organisation of Sunderland, said he believed the true migrant population of the city was nearer 10%. He said there had been a “clear increase” in hate crime in Sunderland since the Brexit vote.