A High Court ruling has decreed that sex offenders’ human rights to privacy should be considered before police make public their whereabouts or criminal record to parents worried about the safety of their children.
The Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme (CSOD), commonly known as Sarah’s Law after eight-year-old Sarah Payne, who was murdered by repeat sex offender Roy Whiting, has been described as a major development in safeguarding children.
Under the scheme, members of the public can ask questions about an individual who has access to children and provides a formal mechanism for enquiries to be made about local, convicted sex offenders.
However, the recent ruling means that convicted paedophiles must be given a say before their presence in a locality is disclosed, which threatens to ‘water down’ Sarah’s Law.
In a test case brought by a repeat sex offender from the Sheffield area, the judges, Sir John Thomas and Mr Justice Hickinbottom, agreed that the man had the right to make “representations” to South Yorkshire police before local parents who made inquiries about him were told of his criminal past.
The reasons given for the ruling were that criminal records and other information about sex offenders is often inaccurate, although they noted that each case should be judged on its own facts.
The judges concluded that: “the CSOD guidance sets out a policy and process that in a number of specific cases may well not comply with the applicable legal principles”.
However, their comments could require a re-drafting of the guidelines, although the judges stopped short of overturning the CSOD scheme altogether, as they said that this course of action would be “disproportionate and risk harm to children”.