Protection from predators
1:03pm Thursday 14th June 2007
Voluntary "chemical castration" of paedophiles and a "Sarah's Law" offering mothers the chance to check whether new partners are sex offenders are among the Government's new proposals to protect children from predators. STEPHEN LEWIS and CHARLOTTE PERCIVAL report.
A YORK mum who helped The Press win a landmark change in the law on child abduction to better protect children has welcomed plans to offer "chemical castration" to paedophiles.
But June Briggs, whose teenage daughter Natalie Hick escaped an attempted abduction by Terry Delaney, says the proposals don't go far enough.
Under the plans announced by Home Secretary John Reid yesterday, child sex abusers would be offered anti-depressant drugs to suppress any deviant urges.
But taking the drugs would be voluntary, Mr Reid stressed, not compulsory.
Compulsory treatment "does not work", the Home Secretary said.
"This needs to happen in combination with psychological treatment, to help people understand their sexual thoughts, challenge deviant thought processes and reduce the risks and dangers driven by their sexual drives.
"It is an eminently sensible thing. It works in areas like Scandinavia. It reduces reoffending. It is not, I repeat not, a substitute for punishment or prison."
But Mrs Briggs said today if such a scheme were to work, it needed to be compulsory. "This is a step forward but it does not go far enough," she said. "I don't think many paedophiles would agree to have it because they don't see what they do as wrong, apparently.
"I think it's about time something like this was done though, especially now we're hearing in the news that a lot of paedophiles are just being cautioned."
Rebecca Sparrow, whose son Josh and nephew Luke were almost bundled into the back of a van in a York street, said she too was concerned that chemical castration would be voluntary.
"I'm worried about the people who won't go for it," she said. "But I think it's a good move and a step forward because it shows the Government is interested in it at last and I think a lot of parents have been fighting for this for a long time.
"I think we have to get our priorities right and protect our children."
The proposals on voluntary chemical castration were just part of a package of new anti-paedophile measures announced yesterday by the Home Secretary that emerged from the child sex offenders' review ordered last summer.
They included plans to increase electronic tagging of sex offenders, and to introduce lie detector tests for known paedophiles to ensure they were not engaging in abusive behaviour.
As widely expected, the Home Secretary has stopped short of proposing a "Megan's Law" for the UK under which parents will be able to find out if a registered sex offender lives in their street.
But in response to the campaign launched following the death of eight-year-old Sarah Payne, he has unveiled a form of "Sarah's Law" under which there would be a "presumption" for police to tell a mother that her new partner was a sex offender.
Under the plans, members of the public - parents, guardians or carers of children - will be able to request details on someone with whom they have a personal relationship and who has unsupervised access to their children.
The police would then carry out a criminal record check and risk assessment. If the person has a history of paedophilia, there would be a "presumption" to reveal that.
What there would not be, Mr Reid said, was a "carte blanche where anyone living in any neighbourhood would be able to find out anything about everyone else".
His solution was a "middle way", Mr Reid said, which would avoid "some hysterical sort of vigilante plethora of attacks throughout the country by making every piece of information available".
Mrs Briggs insisted today that parents should be told when a paedophile moved into the area, and that tougher monitoring of paedophiles should be imposed.
"They are a dangerous risk to our children and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. We are not allowed to know if they're on our street. We can't protect our children ourselves and we can't seem to get any help to protect them either.
"If they have been convicted with some kind of offence, they should be made to have the injection and to live in a hostel or home."
But Sarah Fletcher, the sister of Rebecca Sparrow and aunt of Josh and Luke, said the Home Secretary had the balance about right.
"I'm in two minds about Megan's Law, which they have in America," she said. "I do think parents should be told when a convicted paedophile moves into their area so they know to keep a closer eye on their children, but then you have the vigilante thing.
"I think what John Reid has proposed is a good idea because if you find out someone you're in a relationship with is a convicted paedophile, you can get rid of them."
The main proposals outlined by the Home Secretary yesterday include:
* Trials of drugs which can reduce the sex drive of paedophiles - dubbed "chemical castration" by some. Use of the drugs would be voluntary on the part of paedophiles as part of a wider package of measures to help them address their behaviour.
* Mothers and others who look after young children can ask police to check on people - such as new partners - who have unsupervised access to their children. If that person is a sex offender, there will be a "presumption" that that information should then be passed on.
* Programmes to tag sex offenders and monitor them by satellite to be further extended.
* The use of lie detectors to check whether offenders are engaging in abuse or behaviour to be piloted.
* Methods of ensuring safeguards on paedophiles' computers to be tested.
Should paedophiles be chemically castrated?
Yes... says Sarah Fletcher
SARAH Fletcher's nephews Josh Sparrow, 13, and Luke Fletcher, nine, were injured when a man tried to bundle them into the back of a van in broad daylight.
Luke's arm was broken when the man dragged him across the ground and Joshua was left covered in bruises where he was punched and kicked by their attacker in Fossway, in May.
Thankfully, the two boys were rescued by a member of the public.
There is no suggestion there was a sexual motive for the attack; it is thought that the man mistakenly believed the boys owned a dog which bit his daughter.
However, Sarah welcomes anything that keeps children safer.
"I think injections should be compulsory for convicted paedophiles," she said. "But if they're only voluntary and the paedophiles don't want help, it won't work because they won't be made to do it.
"Childhood is supposed to be precious, you're supposed to have good memories about it and sadly thousands of children don't have that.
"I think if paedophiles are convicted, then chemical castration should be part of it and I don't think you should give them a choice.
"They've done wrong and they can't promise you they're not going to do it again."
No... says Derek Green
DAVID Green, a former psychiatric nurse who has spent 14 years working with paedophiles, says by itself chemical castration simply does not work.
The majority of paedophiles are comparatively ordinary people, who are different only in that they have an inappropriate view of children and sex, Mr Green says.
Some find it very difficult to accept that there is anything wrong with their relationships with children.
"We have to stop them from deluding themselves that they are in a loving relationship with children - and chemical castration would not do that," he said.
The problem with using drugs is that they are purely mechanical, Mr Green said. "You end up with a castrated paedophile, not somebody who is not a paedophile."
Even a paedophile who was on drugs might still crave an inappropriate emotional relationship with children that was abusive, even if he could not have sex with them, Mr Green said.
Another problem with using drugs to suppress the libido was that many of them had extremely unpleasant side effects, he added.
"Most paedophiles would rather go to prison than takes the drugs because the side effects are horrendous. They will simply stop taking them"
That was not necessarily true of anti-depressants such as those the Home Secretary was talking about, however, he conceded.
Such drugs did have a side effect of reducing libido, he said - and if used as part of a programme to help paedophiles come to terms with the fact that what they were doing was wrong, might help.
But by themselves, drugs were not the answer.
Derek Green is director of RWA Child Protection Services