Police forces should release information including immigration status about people who are charged with crimes, Nigel Farage has suggested.
The Reform UK leader said that he “absolutely” believes that information should be made available by police forces.
It comes as Mr Farage and the youngest council leader in the country, George Finch, have claimed there has been a “cover-up” of details about an alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl in Nuneaton.
Two men who are reportedly Afghan asylum seekers have been charged in relation to the alleged incident in the Warwickshire town.
Asked at a press conference on Monday whether the police should release the names, addresses and immigration status of people after they have been charged with an offence, Mr Farage said: “What caused unrest on our streets after Southport last year was us not being told the status of the attacker.
“That led to crazy conspiracy theories spreading online.”
Pushed later on whether the details should be published, Mr Farage said: “I absolutely think that they should.”
At the same press conference, Mr Farage linked a perceived lack of information from police about what happened in Nuneaton to what happened in Southport last July, telling a Westminster press conference that he wanted to discuss a “cover-up that in many ways is reminiscent of what happened after the Southport killings last year”.
He later told the event: “It is not … in any way at all a contempt of court for the British public to know the identity of those who allegedly have committed serious crimes.
“I felt that in the wake of the Southport attacks, and I feel that ever more strongly today.”
Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, was arrested on July 26 and charged the next day with rape, according to Warwickshire Police.
He appeared at Coventry Magistrates’ Court last Monday and has been remanded in custody.
Mohammad Kabir, 23, was arrested in Nuneaton on Thursday and charged with kidnap, strangulation and aiding and abetting rape of a girl under 13, the force added.
He appeared at Coventry Magistrates’ Court on Saturday and has been remanded in custody.
Warwickshire Police did not deny a Mail On Sunday report which said Mulakhil and Kabir are asylum seekers.
In a statement, the force said that once someone is charged with an offence, they follow national guidance, which “does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status”.
Mr Finch, the 19-year-old leader of Warwickshire County Council, told Monday’s press conference that he was “begging” for information about the two to be released in the wake of the charges.
He said he had emailed the council’s chief executive to say that he wished to speak to the police force and urge them to release information about the men’s immigration status.
Mr Finch also said he later had written a letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and the chief constable of Warwickshire Police which called for the immediate release of the immigration status of the two.
Mr Finch said he would be working to “fight against” houses of multiple occupancy (HMOs) that are housing “illegal immigrants” and also claimed that Reform UK need to “change things” and are “the last line of defence against the blob, the cover-ups”.
In his letter to Ms Cooper, published on X on Sunday, Mr Finch claimed that a “cover-up” of immigration status “risks public disorder breaking out on the streets of Warwickshire”.
“Having my ear to the ground locally, it is clear that there is much appetite for protests to take place across the county,” the letter adds.
Asked if police should release the ethnicity of people charged with offences, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said the police and courts were operationally independent but the principle was to be “as transparent as possible”.
He said: “We’ve always said and continue to say that transparency is important.
“That is our position. For police up to central government, we should always be as transparent as possible when it comes to cases.”
He added: “This is clearly a deeply upsetting and distressing case which the public are right to feel shocked and angry about. In relation to this case, the individuals have been charged and we are now in a live investigation.”
