Family of girl killed by Latvian builder seek to give her inquest more powers
A CORONER is today expected to decide whether the inquest into the death of schoolgirl Alice Gross should investigate wider questions around what authorities knew, or ought to have known, about her murderer.
Human rights organisation Liberty, which is representing Alice’s family, has made submissions that the case engages Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, enshrined into UK law in the Human Rights Act.
If the coroner agrees, the forthcoming inquest would not be limited to looking solely into the cause of her death, but could also consider the broader circumstances surrounding it, Liberty said.
Alice, 14, went missing in August last year. Her body was discovered the following month in the Grand Union Canal in Ealing, west London.
Arnis Zalkalns, 41, a builder from Latvia who had come to the UK in 2007, had been named as a suspect in her disappearance. He was later found hanged in woodland nearby. No-one else has been named as being wanted in connection with Alice’s death.
In January this year, police confirmed they believed Zalkalns was responsible. The Crown Prosecution Service said he would have been charged with murder had he been alive.
Zalkalns had previously been convicted of the murder of his wife in Latvia. He had been jailed, but was later released and travelled to the UK.
A spokesman for Liberty said: “It appears the British authorities were not aware of his conviction. In 2009, he was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault on a teenage girl in London, but charges were not brought and he was released.
“Alice’s family wishes to know how it can be that, within EU member states, basic information-sharing cannot be arranged to ensure authorities are notified of the presence of people who pose a potentially high risk to the public.
“The family is aware that a system appears to exist for extracting information about foreign nationals from their home country if they are arrested in the UK, and wishes to know why, when Zalkalns was arrested in 2009, further inquiries were not made of Latvian authorities.”
The hearing will be held at West London Coroner’s Court.