I appeared on LBC radio this morning on the always interesting subject of abuses of diplomatic immunity by foreign diplomats in the UK.
LBC has done some digging and found that the number of crimes committed or alleged to have been committed by foreign diplomats based in the UK has shot up by a SHOCKING 50% in two years:
... nearly 3,000 incidents have been investigated since 2010, but the police are powerless to act.
A set of specific laws enshrined in the Vienna convention make it impossible for Met police to arrest those with diplomatic immunity, even for the crimes as serious as human trafficking and sexual abuse.
Our reporter Tom Swarbrick has the story: "There was a 55% increase in alleged offences between 2010 and 2012 when 996 incidents were registered.
"The first 6 months of this year has already seen police investigate 559. Serious crime, carrying a potential 12 month sentence, ranges from driving under the influence of alcohol and with no insurance, to allegations of human trafficking and sexual abuse.
"The foreign office have recorded allegations of 996 crimes in 2012 and 559 in the first half of this year.
I have to say, this looks like an impressive haul. The story is not a new one. Back in 2010 William Hague released figures showing what was happening:
Foreign embassy staff been exempted from a range of serious charges that in normal cases would have carried a penalty of at least 12 months in prison, according to figures released in parliament today.
Five diplomats have escaped shoplifting charges since 2005, including an official from the Gambian embassy caught last year, a staffer at the Cameroonian embassy in 2008, and one member of each of the Egyptian, Equatorial Guinean and Zambian embassies accused in 2005.
But perhaps the single biggest offender – albeit on less serious allegations – is the US, which has run up £3,821,880 in unpaid fines incurred in a seven-year diplomatic stand-off over the congestion charge.
There are 25,000 embassy staff and their dependants in the UK covered by diplomatic immunity: over the past five years there were 78 exemptions from serious charges.
One member from each of the Brazilian, German, US and Russian embassies were caught drink-driving but released without charge this year.
Diplomats or their dependants from Saudi Arabia and one from Sierra Leone were alleged to have been involved in human trafficking, and one from Saudi Arabia was accused of sexual assault.
And here is the 2013 announcement of the latest numbers:
In 2012, a total of 12 serious offences allegedly committed by people entitled to diplomatic immunity in the United Kingdom were drawn to the attention of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by Diplomatic Protection Group of the Metropolitan Police. Ten of these were driving-related. This is one serious offense less than 2011. We define serious offences as those which could, in certain circumstances, carry a penalty of 12 months imprisonment or more. Also included are drink-driving and driving without insurance...
We take all allegations of illegal activity seriously. When instances of alleged criminal conduct are brought to our attention by the police, we ask the relevant foreign Government to waive diplomatic immunity where appropriate. For the most serious offences, we seek the immediate withdrawal of the diplomat.
So all in all not much new, and mainly driving-related offences that involved no accidents? There were in 2012 only two obviously more or less serious offences involving direct harm to others, namely one case of an abuse of a domestic worker (a Bangladesh diplomat) and 'actual bodily harm' (the lowest of assault offences, perpetrated by a Tanzanian diplomat).
The vast number of 'crimes' as usual were to do with unlawful parking, where Nigeria stands in a league of its own with £85,000 outstanding in fines. Even then, in 2012 FCO pressure on sundry Embassies with piles of parking fines has led to a handy £240,000 being coughed up to the local councils concerned, with a further £340,000 still outstanding.
As I said on LBC, in my nearly 30 years in the Diplomatic Service I could not remember a single case of a UK diplomat being asked to leave a country under suspicion of having committed a criminal offense.
Ho hum. It all boils down to that scary eternal equation: plenty of diplomats + cheap duty-free alcohol = some trouble now and again.
However, while of course we aren't going to fiddle with the basic principles of diplomatic immunity, I see no reason why the FCO does not assertively make public the names of all diplomats asked to leave in disgrace after committing serious offences. Let's play a bit rougher here, pour encourager les autres?
