Children may be at risk because of a wide discrepancy in police responses to requests for information made under a paedophile warning system, campaigners have warned.
According to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), just one in six applications for information has been successful since the child sex offender disclosure scheme (CSOD), or Sarah’s law, was rolled out in England and Wales in April 2011.
Introduced following a campaign by Sara Payne, whose daughter Sarah was murdered by a convicted paedophile, the scheme is a watered-down version of laws in the US – under which, details of the residences of convicted paedophiles are actively publicised.
Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter was killed by Roy Whiting in July 2000, led a campaign calling for a British equivalent. Under the Home Office scheme, parents can ask police about anyone with access to their children and officers will reveal details confidentially if they think it is in the child’s interests.
As well as parents, carers and guardians, any concerned member of the public can formally ask the police to tell them if someone has a record for child sexual offences.
Using the Freedom of Information Act, the NSPCC found that between 2011 and 2014, 5,357 applications were made to 33 forces, but only 877 applications resulted in disclosures being made – or one in every six.
Five other forces said they had received 908 applications, but did not provide information about disclosure numbers. The NSPCC expressed concern over the wide variation in the proportion of disclosures made by different police.
Suffolk police disclosed information they held for around a third of applications (31 out of 93 made). Sussex police, the force that investigated Payne’s murder, gave out information for only 7% of applications (14 out of 193). At the other end of the spectrum, Cleveland police gave out information to 131 out of 147 applications, which equates to 89%.
“We are both disturbed and surprised by this wide discrepancy of figures across the country, revealing that there is a postcode lottery when it comes to how forces deal with Sarah’s law,” said Peter Wanless, NSPCC chief executive.
“While there may be very good reasons for not disclosing information held to applicants, some forces seem to be too cautious, which could put children at serious risk of harm. We need to see regular independent evaluation of this vital law to make sure it’s working as it should.”
Once a request is made under the CSOD, police assess if it raises concerns – including the discovery that the subject has child sex convictions or a criminal record for other relevant offences, such as violence, drugs or domestic abuse. If a disclosure is subsequently made, it is strictly confidential.
