A JUDGE at Maidstone Crown Court has spoken out about the impact of asylum seekers on the crime rate in Kent and elsewhere.

Judge Keith Simpson told three women from Romania who admitted being involved in a conspiracy to burgle: “Unfortunately this type of activity has become all to frequent since people have come from your country seeking asylum.”

But the judge went on to say that those who did become involved in criminal activities did not help the plight of honest and genuine seekers of asylum.

Two women in their 20s and a 52-year-old mother-of-nine were among a mixed group who travelled around Kent and other parts of the country depriving their victims of money and valuables.

In one incident, a shopkeeper in Margate was robbed of £3,300 in cash and £7,000 worth of jewellery, plus 20,000 Indian rupees.

Trevor Wright, prosecuting, told the court how they worked as a team, causing a distraction while one or more of their number rifled a back room.

Over a period of several months, the same gang also raided other shops in Kent, including a newsagent in Northfleet, an off licence in Westerham and two shops in Rochester, and burgled the home of an elderly woman at Biddenden.

Lucretta Velcu, 52, and Alina Ciucur, 22, both from Canterbury Avenue, Slough, were each jailed for three years and Rosalihda Chiciu, 23, formerly from Hayes, Middlesex, and now of no fixed address, was jailed for 30 months.

The judge recommended that they be deported on completion of their sentences.

Mr Wright told the court that of the two counts of conspiracy, the first concerned Velcu alone, because it was said that her activities began before the other two became involved.

Some of the others involved had gone back to Romania, some had been deported and others had simply disappeared.

In most cases, the method used was for a gang of up to eight men and women to enter a shop, usually with a female shop assistant working alone, and distract her by walking around, talking, enquiring about prices, while others slipped into a private part of the premises to steal.

CCTV equipment usually caught members of the gang on film, and much of the identification work had been done by Lynn Davies, a senior investigating officer with Slough Borough Council, and her colleagues.