Gary Glitter

Jon - they are the reasons the Govt wisely rejected the idea . That is the way policy is assessed . You cannot in any event import evidence from other jurisdictions without taking account of cultural differences .

I understand that part of the reasoning was that there was no evidence Megan's Law did any good in the US . I don't have access to that research though so cannot comment on it .
 
I'm even more confused now! You say that there was no evidence that Megan's Law did any good in America, so we won't adopt a similar law here (as Sarah Payne's parents wanted us to). Then you say you can't import evidence from other jurisdictions without taking account of 'cultural differences', whatever that means re the US and the UK.

So, let's see if I've got this right: the UK imported enough evidence (re Megan's Law) to be able to form the opinion that 1) it was not effective in the USA - even though you state that there is no point to forming such an opinion without taking account of cultural differences; and 2) it has decided that on the basis of American evidence that it's no good for the UK, even though (gasps for breath), once again it would have to 'import' such evidence in order to draw such a conclusion?

So what exactly are the cultural differences between paedophiles in America and paedophiles in the UK? Theirs bribe with candy floss, and ours with Werther's Originals?

It's no wonder trials stretch on for months... :blink:
 
From the BBC website .

Apparently only 80% of sex offenders comply with registration requirements in the US as against 97% under our register . Thus the risk is that Megan's Law may make them disappear.

Second the point is well made that as many cases ocur within families a Megan's Law may make victims less likely to report abuse in fear that identification of the offender will identify them .

This rings true with me from my own work experience some years back.
 
Right, understand that, then. Erm... you make it sound as if being registered as a paedophile were optional. Kind of like, say, would you like to come in, maybe have a coffee, and sign our offenders' register while you're at it? I thought all registration of EVERY offender was mandatory, else why do we hear how people like Pete Townshend will remain on a register for ten years?

Just to broaden this out a bit, Arders, are UK schools or children's organisations (such as Youth Clubs, hostels, orphanages, foster homes) ever informed when a paedo comes to live nearby? Or would such information contravene the poor soul's human rights to privacy or somesuch?
 
It is not the placing on the register that is the problem identified but the compliance with requirements e.g to inform police of moving house etc that is much lower in the US .

As for your latter point it is a judgment for the police to make in a particular situation . We do also have the sex offender order that acts like an ASBO in that offenders commit a new offence if for example they do something prohibited in the order . That can be approaching children or hanging round schools etc .

There is no question of any human rights breach so long as the information given is necessary and proportionate to protect the human rights of others see Article 8(2) of the Convention nor would there be any risk of a breach of the Data Protection Act if the disclosure was considered necessary by the police for the prevention of crime .

There are detailed ACPO guidelines on this .
 
I agree with Ardross on this. I think I'd feel my children were safer if the police new the whereabouts of all paedophiles as opposed to a large number of them disappearing (with inevitably some ending up in my area) to avoid the lynch mobs.
 
Frankly, very frankly, HT, the Police or the Pope knowing where paedophiles live doesn't make the blindest bit of difference to them re-offending, and the Ian Huntley case in particular doesn't inspire the slightest bit of confidence in me that germane information is mandatorily made available to all of the organisations who SHOULD be able to make a search for data on prospective male employees - schools, youth groups, children's societies, etc. Had Huntley's background, known to another county's police, been clearly viewable by the school which hired him, it's MORE likely that the two lasses he killed would be alive today. Not absolutely certain, true, but more likely, since the school wouldn't have touched him with a ten-foot pole.

In order to work both voluntarily and professionally with Victim Support, for example, which is part-funded by the Home Office and supported by the Police, all applicants are police-checked for their records prior to them being accepted by the organisation. I know, because I worked both as a volunteer and as a paid coordinator for VS. However, when I applied to work with Headway, which supports head-injured adults, no such police checks were ALLOWED TO BE MADE by the charity! Thus, we ended up with a very controlling man 'offering' his services to these vulnerable people to help them to obtain all of the financial compensations to which they might be entitled - and cutting a private deal on the side with them. The person who ran the local branch was too naive, or too stupid, to have insisted on overseeing his activities as she had every right to do. (Eventually, he was deposed and certain 'gifts' of money to him by the head-injured contested, although never in court.)

Headway is just one small example of where knowing the police-verifiable backgrounds to workers would help significantly to prevent the abuse or manipulation of the vulnerable. So, I don't see why all organisations dealing with children shouldn't be able to access full data on demand, prior to hiring anyone, or using their services as a volunteer. Paedophiles target child-based organisations in the same way that conmen target those with vulnerable members. But the Home Office gets to decide who can see what, and only when - it seems to me - is its own money invested, does it permit records to be searched and reported on as 'satisfactory' or 'unsatisfactory'. No, sorry, I have no confidence in the system as it is being the slightest bit of a guarantee for children's safety!
 
I certainly agree more needs to be done to stop people like Huntley getting such jobs but making these records available to all and sundry (as per Megan's law) would create a lot more Thomas Hamiltons than it would prevent.

Re charities, some of them are as dodgy as the people they'd be checking up on. Would such a check have stopped the con man you described anyway?
 
Veering wildly off-course with this, but the charities I worked for and many of those we interacted with, Honest Tommo, had unprofessional and inept women as managers. VS was only saved from potential cons because all workers (pro and voluntary) were background-checked by the Police. In the case of Headway, the manageress's opinion of everyone was so all-embracing that people didn't even fill in application forms, have references taken up, or at the least their past employer or charity contacted to see what sort of performance they'd made. When the dodginess started to emerge, she then (two years after he'd been on the charity's committee) phoned up his past charity, who said 'oh, we thought you knew why we let him go and took him on anyway'! In other words, if you don't find out, the dodger isn't going to tell you, and no-one - even a related charity - isn't going to tip you the wink, either. No wonder so many people 'fall through the cracks'.

When I joined, I found all kinds of discrepancies in their book-keeping (yes, me, always bottom in Maths and as terrified of figurework as some people are of spiders!), and unearthed missing hundreds of pounds. The 'book-keeper' was supposedly qualified, but doing the 'work' voluntarily, so, the manageress said, we shouldn't 'make her feel bad' by telling her she needed to sharpen up her work. It was as if, oh, this is a charity, so we can't EXPECT people to do as well as if they were in 'real' jobs! I found out a couple more major problems with the way the charity was run, and pretty soon this woman was hinting broadly that perhaps - having rung me persistently to ask me to join them - I expected 'too much' from them! I decided to resign, since she showed no signs of wanting to put the organisation on a more accountable footing, and as we were about to get a good wedge of money from the Health Service, I didn't want to be involved in something that wouldn't be able to explain where it went, when it went astray!

A year or so later, I saw her and she actually apologised to me, said I'd been right and she'd been too keen to try to see the best in everyone. I said there was nothing wrong with that, provided you knew that underneath, everything was accounted for and that decisions to remove bad practices or people were made.

Having always worked where I had to be accountable for my actions, I found working in charities a bizarre experience - maybe it's because they don't work to get the money in, in the way a profit-oriented organisation does, that they don't worry about accounting for it. Along with that sort of attitude, they were also very lax about the accountability of the people they hired or had working voluntarily. It wasn't an ethos I could accept, since vulnerable recipients of help need to be protected from those who'd exploit them, and some charities clearly don't put those protections in place. I also believe that if you give me £40,000 to spend, I should account to you for how and why I've spent it, in the same way as a regular business would. Relying on some volunteer's scribbled notes on the back of menu cards, half-completed a/cs sheets, and the odd telephone call would not satisfy most donors, I feel. At least, as a result of my list of accounting horrors, they eventually employed a local firm who did the work for them at a 'kindly' rate.
 
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