The disclosure that the chief suspect in the case of the missing schoolgirl Alice Gross is a convicted Latvian killer who should not have been in the country once again exposes the flaws in our border controls. By staying out of the Schengen Agreement, which removed frontiers throughout much of the EU, the UK retained the ability to check the bona fides of people coming here. Although there is free movement of people within Europe, we can bar entry to criminals considered to be a danger. But the wherewithal to do so is only as effective as the information available to border officials and the ease with which it can be accessed.

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