UK police 'have lost' 300 sex offenders » Central Government » 24dash.com

Police around the country have lost track of 322 convicted sex offenders, it was reported today.

The offenders have managed to give police forces across Britain the slip, the News of the World revealed.

The revelation will come as a fresh blow to Home Secretary John Reid whose department is already under fire for failing to carry out proper checks on thousands of British criminals convicted abroad and for failing to enforce travel bans on 150 drug traffickers.

The newspaper requested the information from all 50 police forces across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland under the Freedom of Information Act.

Freed sex offenders are supposed to be monitored by officials working under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA).

But according to the paper, registered sex offenders, including rapists and paedophiles, have used a loophole in the system allowing them to register vague addresses in order to disappear.

Last year one paedophile who breached register conditions was allowed to give his address as "woods" after moving from "a tent near Guilford leisure centre", the paper claimed.

The investigation revealed the Metropolitan Police had lost track of the whereabouts of 88 sex offenders - the highest number of any force.

West Midlands Police had lost 25 and in Greater Manchester the number stood at 18.

Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Durham and Norfolk Police said they had no missing sex offenders in their area.

Two police forces in Wales - Dyfed Powys and Gwent - did not provide a figure.

All the police forces refused to give details about the sex offenders or how long they had been missing.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis told the paper: "Yet again we see a serious failure of government criminal justice databases to do their job."

Michelle Elliott, founder and director of child protection charity Kidscape, said it was "unacceptable" that registered sex offenders could go missing.

The Home Office said the UK has one of the most advanced systems in the world for monitoring dangerous offenders.

A spokesman said: "The day-to-day management of sex offenders on the register is rightly a matter for the police and probation services.

"Where an offender appears in breach of their notification requirements the police will update the Police National Computer and the Sex Offender Register to ensure they are traced and dealt with appropriately.

"The sex offenders register is a powerful operational tool for managing sex offenders in the community with a compliance rate of 97% for those subject to its requirements.

"In the UK we have one of the most advanced systems in the world for monitoring and managing dangerous offenders.

"The Government is committed to protecting the public and is determined to strengthen arrangements for dealing with sex offenders in the community.

"In June the Home Secretary commissioned a comprehensive and thorough review of child sex offenders.

"The review, which is ongoing and on which no decisions have been made, starts from the position that public protection is paramount and that information shouldn't be the sole preserve of officials.

"Disclosure of information on offenders is just one of the areas under consideration including the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) currently in place, approved premises and community housing, offender treatment, public awareness and sentencing."

The Metropolitan Police, which is the largest police force in the country and has the highest number of missing sex offenders, refused to say how long their whereabouts had been unknown.

A spokeswoman also refused to give any details of their crimes or say how many were paedophiles.

She said: "The Metropolitan Police have 88 registered sex offenders currently recorded as wanted because their whereabouts are unknown."

She said the figure was low compared to the total number of registered sex offenders in the force area but she refused to say what that total was.

Police were taking "pro-active" steps to try to trace the missing offenders, she said.

She would not reveal whether any of the missing sex offenders had been traced or any more had disappeared since the FOI request was made last Thursday.

Copyright Press Association 2007.