Informing on paedophiles was lawful, Lords rule

The public has no general right to know if a convicted paedophile has moved into their area, the Lord Chief Justice said yesterday.

But he ruled North Wales police had acted legally in informing a caravan site owner that two convicted child sex offenders were living on his site.

The couple, who were freed from prison in July last year, had been forced to move four times in six months when their identities became known. The man and woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had claimed that the police's action breached their human right to privacy and was "unlawful, unreasonable and unjustifiable".

Lord Bingham, sitting with Mr Justice Buxton, ruled that the action by North Wales police "fell within the bounds of legality".

But Lord Bingham added that the applicants had drawn attention to a pressing social problem. "It is not acceptable that those who have undergone the lawful punishment imposed by the courts should be the subject of intimidation and private vengeance, harried from parish to parish like paupers under the old Poor Law.

"It is not only in their interest but in the interest of society as a whole that they should be enabled, and if need be helped, to live normal, lawful lives."

Around 110,000 convicted paedophiles are thought to live in the community. Under the new Sex Offenders Act, Britain plans to set up a national register of paedophiles who will have to give their names and addresses to the local police. The maximum penalty for failing to do so will be six months in jail.

There has been controversy as to whether members of the public should be informed when child sex offenders move into the area as they are in America under "Megan's Law" - named after Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old New Jersey child who was raped and strangled by a convicted sex offender in 1994.

But civil rights groups and probation officers have argued that informing people indiscriminately will lead to vigilante actions driving paedophiles underground and making them more dangerous.

Paul Cavadino, principal officer of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (Nacro) said after the judgment: "The High Court has held that the police acted lawfully, but the results of their action remain highly unsatisfactory."

He said that while the police had acted properly in consulting other agencies "to cause these offenders' eviction with no arrangements for accommodating them elsewhere inevitably meant making them homeless, rootless and more likely to go to ground. The result can be increased risk to the public. The action taken in this case may have reduced risk in the particular location of the caravan site but increased it elsewhere."

Mr Cavadino said it underlined the "urgent need" for Home Office guidelines to restrict the circumstances in which the police can disclose identities of paedophiles.

The pair were given leave to appeal against the ruling.