Keynsham's MP welcomes the success of Sarah's Law

Child protection campaigner Dan Norris, Keynsham’s MP, has welcomed the national roll-out of Sarah’s Law – which protects children from predatory paedophiles.

The Labour MP, who trained with the NSPCC and worked locally as a child protection officer before becoming an MP, was instrumental in drawing up Sarah’s Law which was piloted in four police forces.

Under the scheme, a parent, carer or guardian can apply to the police to find out if someone with unsupervised access to their child is on the sex offenders’ register. This might be a new partner or a babysitter. 

The £600,000 pilot scheme has been so successful that the Government has announced that 18 more police forces will adopt it from August. The remaining 21 police forces will become part of Sarah’s Law by March 2011.

 “I’m thrilled that this scheme has been such a success,” said Dan. “It shows the protection of children is the most important consideration – not the protection of paedophiles from exposure. To date, 60 children have been protected from potential abuse by sex offenders and that’s just within four police force areas. Many more children will be made safer in the future.”

 There had been fears that the scheme could drive sex offenders underground or lead to vigilante attacks – none of this happened. During the pilot, there were 311 formal applications about individuals and information was disclosed about 21 sex offenders.

 Disclosures about individuals can only be made to parents, carers or guardians of children and they are not allowed to pass on any information that they receive.  When the pilot was evaluated it was found that no sex offenders went “underground” and there were no serious breaches of confidentiality.

“It is a shame the Avon and Somerset Police rejected their opportunity to be part of this early success because they already do a lot of good work protecting children,” added Dan. “But we now know that our local force will be part of the scheme soon.”

 Four years ago Mr Norris was part of a special Home Office delegation that visited the USA to look at the operation of Megan's Law - the American system that allows public access to the names and addresses of convicted sex offenders. Dan and his colleagues looked at how the advantages of Megan's Law could be used to protect British children, without introducing some its disadvantages - like pushing paedophiles underground or vigilante attacks.

 “I was always confident Sarah’s Law would be successful in better protecting our children,” he said.

“Bluntly, children's rights too often come second place to those of the adults who harm them. Abusers exploit this unfairness to harm over and over again until they are caught. Sarah's Law helps protect children by removing the secrecy which paedophiles use to hide their past record of wickedness against children.”