The grieving mother of schoolgirl Alice Gross has said she believes that the government is ultimately to blame for failures to make sufficient checks on her killer’s past criminal record.

An inquest jury concluded on Monday that the 14-year-old was unlawfully killed in a sexually motivated attack in 2014, and is believed to have died at the hands of Arnis Zalkalns, a Latvian builder who had served time in jail for murdering his wife in his native country.

Ros Hodgkiss told Channel 4 News: “I think ultimately it’s a failure of government and I would blame those who perhaps in the government didn’t make this a high enough priority at the time.

“I think in this instance although there was this understanding that there was this gap with foreign murderers and dangerous criminals I think it wasn’t given a high enough priority. I think things have changed because it has a greater priority and perhaps cases like Alice’s, and the very legitimate public interest that Alice’s case has raised, has made it a more urgent priority. But in our case that priority was too little and too late and we’ve lost our daughter in an avoidable and pointless way. That’s who I would blame is government.”

The jury of eight men and three women announced in their final conclusions on the sixth day of the inquest, held at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, that Alice’s death was consistent with compression asphyxia.

Alice disappeared from her home in Hanwell, west London, on 28 August 2014. Her body was found on 30 September following the biggest search launched by Scotland Yard since the 7/7 bombings in 2005.

Zalkalns was found hanged in a park on 4 October 2014. Had the 41-year-old been caught alive, he would have been charged with the schoolgirl’s murder, police said.

Alice’s father, Jose Gross, her mother, and her sister Nina were present in the courtroom as the jury forewoman read aloud the conclusions.

During the proceedings Hodgkiss read a prepared statement to the jury in which she said the family “remained stunned” that Zalkalns had not been monitored “or even known about in any way” after he came to the UK.

The coroner, Dr Fiona Wilcox, said she would raise concerns with the Home Office about cases of foreign nationals. She had previously told the jury that the evidence given at the inquest did not support conclusions that would “imply that any actions or inactions” of the Home Office or police caused or contributed to the schoolgirl’s death.



Alice’s family has called for careful, targeted reform of the system for exchanging information about high-risk offenders across Europe. Her mother told Channel 4 News: “[Alice] wrote an essay about this very issue … about freedom of movement and about criminal convictions and to some extent we feel that by trying to say some of the things that we’re saying and difficult as it is we are kind of honouring her beliefs.



“She was talking about the way in which she didn’t think European criminals should be treated differently to British ones and that she liked the idea of Europe because it was people working together rather than working alone and I think that was possibly one of the last things that Alice wrote at the end of Year 9. You read it and there’s a horrible irony in it for us. She was a thoughtful, intelligent, caring and beautiful girl and both her future and ours have been brutally taken away from us.”

Alice’s father said the inquest had highlighted a problem with the “reactive” process for checking records, because a suspect needed to be arrested in the first instance. Jose Gross told Channel 4 News there was still a “gaping hole in the system”, although he acknowledged police had made changes.

Alice Gross’s sister Nina and mother Ros Hodgkiss read statements outside the Royal Courts of Justice after the verdict. Photograph: Cathy Gordon/PA

In a statement after the verdict, her parents said: “Like Alice, our family is in favour of freedom of movement and all the good things it has brought to our lives. We do not believe that any citizen deserves to be treated differently based on their race or nationality.

“Our only concern has been to ensure that there are fair and proportionate rules governing the movement of serious criminals within Europe, whether that is a Latvian coming to the UK or a dangerous citizen travelling abroad.”

Gross said: “As Alice’s father, losing Alice has shattered me. The pain of knowing I will never see, hear or cuddle her again is unbearable. This inquest has helped me face what has happened and hopefully now I will be able to properly grieve for my beautiful, loving daughter.”

Hodgkiss said: “I still find it almost impossible to believe that our lovely daughter has been so brutally taken from us. I miss her every moment of every day. I have felt the need to find out as much as I can about how it is possible that she could have been killed in such a horrific way, and to try and change things so that it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

Alice’s sister Nina Gross said: “I feel that it is sometimes forgotten that Alice was a real person; a kind and loving sister who deserved so much to live a full life. Life is broken and cold without her. Regardless of whether legal responsibility can be attributed to the state for Alice’s death, I believe the state failed Alice and our family. Alice was not tragic, but what happened to her was.”

The family, who were represented by the campaign group Liberty, used the Human Rights Act to secure an inquest to investigate what the authorities knew or should have known about her murderer and the systems available for authorities to find out about his background.

Liberty said that as a direct consequence of Alice’s death there was now much better information-sharing about criminal convictions across Europe.



Police had failed to ask Latvian authorities whether Zalkalns had a criminal record when he was arrested in 2009 for an alleged sexual assault. The case was dropped when the 14-year-old alleged victim refused to make a statement.

Alice’s body was found in the Grand Union canal, wrapped in bin bags and weighted down. CCTV footage revealed that before her disappearance Zalkalns had cycled behind her on the canal towpath.

The Metropolitan police deputy assistant commissioner, Steve Rodhouse, said after the verdict: “If we were to arrest a foreign national, it is now our policy to check their overseas offending history. In 2009 that was not the case, in the Met or policing nationally, and this check was not done. However, even if we had identified Zalkalns’ conviction in that year, it would not have changed the outcome of his arrest.”

He said if that check had been conducted in 2009, it meant he might have been identified sooner as a suspect in Alice’s disappearance. But added: “Sadly, in reality nothing would have changed as all the evidence strongly points to the fact that both Alice and Zalkalns were dead prior to them being reported missing.



“Over the last two years we have put significant effort into making sure that when we arrest foreign nationals, checks for previous convictions are carried out in as many cases as possible, making sure we can deal with them as effectively as we can UK nationals.”

• This article was amended on 5 July 2016. An earlier version said Ros Hodgkiss blamed the government for her daughter’s death. In fact she told Channel 4 news that she blamed the government for the failure to properly check and pick up on Zalkalns’ criminal record.