Electronic tags for freed criminals put on wrong people in string of blunders by officials
A STRING of blunders by officials has seen tags for freed criminals put on the wrong people.
They have been incorrectly fitted in 11 cases in the last five years.
In February, contractor Capita — paid £50million a year for the Electronic Monitoring Scheme — tagged the wrong person.
The mistake was not spotted for three weeks.
In November, it took a week to spot an error.
Accomplices sometimes feign an identity to fool the firm fitting the tag.
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In 2020, Capita security worker Martin Crean, 49, was jailed for seven years for taking tag bribes.
David Spencer, of the Centre for Crime Prevention, said: “These mistakes put the public at risk for no good reason.”
The Ministry of Justice said: “Thanks to safeguards only a small number of errors were made.”