Sex offenders to be 'chemically castrated'

Published by webmaster for 24dash.com in Central Government

The Government is to begin a pilot scheme which will see some sex offenders "chemically castrated", it will be announced today.

Volunteers who have committed crimes such as child sex abuse will be offered drugs to suppress their libido.

Compulsory lie detector tests for sex offenders are also expected to be among the measures unveiled by Home Secretary John Reid.

He is due to announce proposals to allow parents and guardians limited access to information about convicted paedophiles.

For the first time they will be given the right to ask whether a person who has contact with their child is a sex offender.

The plans, first announced in April, will mainly apply if the individual is able to spend time alone with a youngster.

There will also be other limited circumstances when disclosures can be made - but these will be announced later today.

The system would build on laws which already allow police to approach and warn a woman who has begun a relationship with a known paedophile.

Other moves in the package will include a publicity campaign to raise awareness of the fact that 90% of child abuse takes place in a family setting.

The multi-agency public protection arrangements or MAPPA, which monitor sex offenders in the community, will also get a £1.2 million funding boost.

But the Government has ruled out introducing a British version of "Megan's Law".

In December, ministers proposed allowing members of the public to ask police to run sex offender checks on local people suspected of being paedophiles.

The powers would have applied to anyone suspicious living in the neighbourhood, regardless of whether they routinely had access to children.

However, this idea was scrapped within months.

The NSPCC welcomed the development, saying "open access" could force convicted paedophiles underground and place youngsters at greater risk of assault.

But today the children's charity warned that the new disclosure plans could over-stretch limited resources.

Director and chief executive Dame Mary Marsh said: "Agencies are already struggling to keep track of known offenders in the community.

"Public requests for information about suspect individuals, who may not have committed a crime, require careful handling.

"The police will need adequate resources to deal effectively with these concerns and proper guidance from the Government on how they are to give out information and to whom.

"We fear the police and other agencies may not have enough officers and funding to make fully considered decisions on information sharing while keeping a grip on known offenders."

She added: "Someone with a clean criminal record does not always have a clean bill of health - people must never be lulled into a false sense of security."

In a report published last year it was revealed that more than four out of 10 sex offenders who took lie detector tests were found to be liars.

A Home Office pilot scheme used polygraph tests on 350 offenders and questioned them about whether they had reoffended or breached their parole or community order conditions.

In all, 44% were found to be deceptive in the voluntary trials, which will be followed with a compulsory scheme under today's package.

New information about paedophiles' behaviour - which could be vital in protecting children and others from sex attacks - was obtained in nearly eight out of 10 cases in the pilot.

Crucially, the report on the pilot revealed 31 tests had uncovered evidence that sex offenders had lied about not committing new offences.

In one case, a 24-year-old man on parole for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old girl admitted still being in contact with her, and later police interviews revealed they were having sex.

Another offender's lie detector test revealed he was still having sex with his 15-year-old victim.

It also emerged that a 58-year-old internet paedophile was having unsupervised contact with his granddaughter, had taken a young girl aged eight or nine into his home unsupervised on a number of occasions and was still using internet chat rooms.

Information provided by the polygraphs led probation officers to increase their risk assessment of offenders in 81% of cases.

The lie detector tests measured physiological data including breathing and heart rates.

Today's package of measures is expected to put an end to calls for a British version of Megan's Law.

The US legislation commemorates seven-year-old Megan Kanka who was raped, strangled and her body stuffed in a plastic toy chest by neighbour Jesse Timmendequas in the New Jersey suburb of Hamilton Township in 1994.

The murder of eight-year-old schoolgirl Sarah Payne by paedophile Roy Whiting in July 2000 sparked a nationwide campaign for similar legislation to be introduced in Britain, dubbed "Sarah's Law".

The system now being proposed would have arguably had no effect on the Sarah Payne case, as she was grabbed by a stranger, and is a far cry from the "Sarah's Law" originally envisaged by campaigners.

Sarah's mother Sara Payne welcomed reports that some details about convicted paedophiles would be released and said they were a positive development.

She said at the weekend: "It's a massive step forward. If you have a child or look after a child you have a place you can go and have some access (to details about paedophiles).

"You don't have full access but you have some access."

The package of measures applies to England and Wales.

Copyright Press Association 2007

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