David Willetts has today written to Ruth Kelly asking whether she can guarantee all of the sex offenders, violent prisoners etc who haven't been deported have been placed on the relevant child protection lists. As the Home Office has lost track of them, the answer will presumably have to be "er, we don't know".Here is the text of the letter to Ruth Kelly...
On Tuesday we learnt that 1023 foreign national prisoners were released without being screened to see whether they should be deported or monitored. That included 272 with drugs convictions, 114 violent offenders and 48 sex offenders, some of whom have committed offences against children. It is very worrying that the Home Office has not been able to deport or trace these individuals in the way that they should and has indicated it does not know the whereabouts of many of them. Those with serious convictions should have been placed on the sex offenders register, List 99 and/or the Protection of Children Register. Could you assure me that your Department has checked that the foreign offenders were placed on the sex offenders register, List 99 and/or the Protection of Children Register? Can you guarantee to parents that they are not working in schools or indeed with children in any way? After the problems earlier this year, parents do need clear answers on these important
issues.
And they need them soon.
Hi, Iain - love the blog. You may enjoy this little 80s Blair snippet I came across - http://80sactual.blogspot.com/2005/05/shape-of-things-to-come.html - the full horror was then on the very distant horizon, but Mr Blair's horribly cheesy, rather manic grin says a lot...
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame that we can't go back to the good old days of the 50s and early 60s. One knew where the perverts were then, they all had jobs as teachers. It seemed to be almost a requirement of the job, I think the government of the day (Tory natch) thought it was character building for us pupils......
ReplyDeleteHughes, is there something you'd like to get off your chest? :) I think you are missing the point. No one is arguing against the sex offenders register. We just want to know why these people aren't on it. Quite a reasonable request I would have thought.
ReplyDeleteOnly the curse of a good memory; it would be so much easier to be a grumpy old fool who believed that the good old days really existed!
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought your mob was against bureaucrats, form filling, wasting professionals’ time and the like. How do you think information might find its way onto a register without (fallible) human assistance?
Few systems (even (especially?) in the marvellous private sector) reach 100% perfection in under four or five years....
But one day the world will be perfect and what will we poor bloggers do then.....
I've just been nosing around They Work For You Dot Com, as I thought the question had been asked in the debate after the statement by Clarke, it was asked by Anne Main. If you want the links they are on my blog.
ReplyDelete