QUITE rightly the parents of murdered teenager Alice Gross, who was killed and chucked into a filthy canal by Latvian immigrant Arnis Zalkalns, want to know why he was allowed to be in this country, even though he already had a criminal record for killing his wife.

Quick off the mark was the human rights group Liberty which insisted: “The family is aware that this is a sensitive and difficult subject and is concerned to ensure that it is not hijacked by groups with an anti-immigration agenda.”

Why would it be, when the issue here is the fitness of the system which allows – as the family have so cruelly discovered – anyone from Europe to come and live here, even if they are a murderer?

I wonder how many of the rabid EUnionists reckon that even though he had a criminal record for battering and stabbing his wife, even though he murdered Alice, the free movement across borders for killers like Arnis Zalkalns is a price we have to pay for what they like to describe as ‘freedom’.

Even worse, I wonder how many of them secretly harbour the view that the occasional tragedy of this sort is merely collateral damage in the Great European Project?

Alice’s family says she agreed with the ‘free movement of people’. Really? Or, like most kids, did she just think it was brilliant that you could go on holiday in Europe and not get too much hassle at the borders?

I respect their stance. It is, after all, their child that has died.

But if they think that anything will be done to ensure this doesn’t happen again, I fear they are going to be hugely disappointed.

Open borders, same as open benefits and homogenisation of laws and, eventually, taxes are what drive the federalisation of Europe.

The cost of synchronising computer systems would take the kind of money that Europe and the UK doesn’t like spending and, anyway, I suspect that many of the people involved in border-control policy think it’s un-European and racist to ask awkward questions of those who would come here.

It never hurt anyone to have their credentials checked at a border or when they apply to live in another country.

As we have seen, it DOES hurt when murderers, rapists and child abusers are allowed to reside here without so much as a by-your-leave.

After all, it’s not as if we don’t have enough perverted, homicidal maniacs of our own, is it?