David Cameron's 'stand against paedophiles' is more to do with ditching the human rights act than protecting victims
The announcement that individuals should have the right to appeal their inclusion on the sex offenders register for life prompted the kind of headlines which, as a criminal barrister of my acquaintance observes, suggest that "taking a stand against paedophiles" is an unusually brave and maverick position, rather than the moral baseline from which 99.9% of us operate.
For the House of Commons cameras, Theresa May declared herself "appalled" at the supreme court's ruling that, in the case of two convicted sex offenders, their indefinite registration with no possibility of review was incompatible with their rights to privacy under the Human Rights Act. David Cameron was sovereignty personified, assuring MPs that he would do the "minimum necessary" to comply, and that a commission to consider the creation of a British bill of rights to trump the universal declaration was imminent.
It should come as no surprise that our peculiar national neuralgia as regards human rights is being indulged to the point of spoiling by the coalition, be that in relation to prisoners' votes or gay Ugandan asylum seekers. But these latest attempts to rebrand the act as a perverts' charter also reveal a deep ignorance about what the sex offenders register is actually for, and how it operates.
First legislated for in 1997, the register requires offenders to inform the police of their home address in the UK, any other addresses in the country where they plan to stay for longer than seven days, and any travel abroad lasting longer than three days. Essentially, it's a monitoring system that allows for information sharing between agencies and continued risk assessment.
Not all offenders remain registered for life ? only those imprisoned for 30 months or more are placed on it indefinitely, while those cautioned have their names removed after two years. According to the latest figures, there are 48,000 individuals listed ? 24,000 of whom are potentially affected by the supreme court judgment which, the government has stated, will in any case only apply to those who have been on the register for at least 15 years. Nor does removal mean one can retrain as a children's entertainer: an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau check would still flag up previous convictions or cautions.
Although official statistics do not differentiate between those on the register who are responsible for offending against children and those offending against adults, experts suggest that most of those registered for life will have been convicted for child sex offences. Our understanding of the long-term pathology and treatment of paedophilia remains woefully inadequate, but the Home Office's own research does suggest that the current sex offender treatment programme (SOTP) has a significant impact on reconvictions for medium- and low-risk prisoners. While acknowledging that there will always exist a tranche of high-risk behaviour that demands long-term monitoring, those working in child protection have expressed no alarm to me about the impact of the supreme court's ruling. Those making appeal decisions will have 15 years-plus experience of the offender in question, and are unlikely to be taken in by an active sexual predator.
Meanwhile, the arcane complexity and breadth of sexual offences legislation inevitably results, on occasion, in an individual who manifestly does not represent an ongoing danger being registered indefinitely, such as one of the original supreme court appellants, who was convicted at the age of 11, just one year above this country's noxiously low age of criminal responsibility.
Spotlighting the tiny minority who are likely to appeal conveniently distracts from more sober discussion of whether police resources are best spent following low-risk individuals over decades or why it is that, despite strong results, there remains a significant shortfall in SOTP places. And here, at the risk of adding fairy dust to Cameron's magical thinking, is a genuine "big society" point. What keeps sex offenders ? and thus their potential victims ? safe is not the copper over their shoulder, but family, employment, and membership of a support group such as Circles UK, which I have written about before. The Lucy Faithfull Foundation (LFF), which pioneered the hugely successful Stop it Now! helpline, offering advice to those worried about inappropriate sexual impulses, launched its Parents Protect! website at the end of last year, which aims to dispel common myths around child sexual abuse and give parents practical information that will help them protect young people.
LFF has long argued that the abuse of children should be treated like any other serious public health issue, with a massive public education campaign. The latest furore over the supreme court ruling only entrenches the public perception of sexual offenders as overtly other, rather than teasing out the unpalatable truth that society is most at risk from those who never get near a register.
Finally, let's return to Wednesday's parliamentary pyrotechnics, on which the Lib Dems, by the way, have been conspicuously silent. Why choose this week to announce the supreme court ruling, given it is months old and ? crucially ? the government is not legally required to change course? Cameron and May's suggestion they were being forced to alter the register by the judiciary is seriously misleading: the act was drafted in such a way as to ensure the courts never have the final say over parliament.
One can only presume the timing was informed more by the prime minister's neat segue into a British bill of rights commission than by the desire to safeguard the public. There are many ways to protect victims of sexual offences, but railing against the Human Rights Act for political capital isn't one of them.
Wolverhampton Wanderers Jonny Wilkinson Nuclear power Gabriel Agbonlahor US foreign policy Lake District
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