A judge called yesterday for an EU-wide criminal record system after warning of serious difficulties in getting accurate information on the previous crimes of foreign offenders.

Judge Stephen Robbins said that it was a “matter of pubic concern” that the courts in England had difficulty receiving details of convictions from foreign states.

He said that the process of checking previous convictions on two Lithuanians convicted of gun-running had shown how “very difficult it was to glean details, let alone precise details” from their home country.

The judge said: “We know there is much concern at the moment in the press about convictions of British nationals coming from abroad, but here we have nationals from a country that has recently joined the EU . . . and who are free to visit Britain.”

His remarks highlight concerns among police and employers that proper criminal record checks cannot be carried out on some EU nationals, particularly those from former Soviet bloc countries.

The judge said that despite all the efforts that had been made, it had not been possible to find out details of the criminal careers of the Lithuanians.

He said that police had not been able to determine whether a 10-year sentence that one of the men had received had been imposed for rape.

Apart from confirming that he and his co-defendant had been in trouble before, a prosecution office in Lithuania had been able to provide nothing more than a useless list of penal codes, some of which were outdated.

The judge, who jailed the three men at Southwark Crown Court in London last week for a total of 32 years, has deferred a decision on whether they should be allowed to remain in Britain amid concerns over “double jeopardy” issues.

Orestas Bubliauskas, 34, from Chigwell, Essex, and Andrius Gurskas, 26, both illegal immigrants, of no fixed address, were each sentenced to 11 years, while Darius Stankunas, 34, who lived in Sheffield, was sentenced to 10 years.

They used a car fuel tank to smuggle an “assassin’s armoury” of revolvers, silencers and ammunition from Lithuania, an EU member since May 2004.The Russian Baikal pistols, 20 rounds of ammunition and a silencer were then sold to gangs in Britain for as little as £1,500.

The judge said that all three defendants should be made the subject of a recommendation for deportation.

A spokesman for the Home Office admitted that there were difficulties in getting information about the criminal history of foreign nationals. “The Criminal Records Bureau is working with the Association of Chief Police Officers about how convictions across Europe can be better shared”, he said.

Five thousand files relating to British nationals convicted of offences abroad are being held by the Foreign Office, it was disclosed yesterday.

The files, including details of offenders arrested and convicted of serious offences included sex crimes, are passed to the department by diplomatic missions around the world.

The Foreign Office never passes them to the Home Office, but informs the Serious Organised Crime Agency of the offenders when they are due to be released from prison abroad and are to return home.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, wrote to John Reid and the Foreign Office asking for details of the arrangements under which information on British citizens convicted abroad are collected by diplomats.

Mr Reid is expected to announce next week the name of the civil servant who will carry out the investigation into how a backlog of 27,000 files on UK citizens convicted abroad was left gathering dust in the Home Office.

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