" Lock up untried child abusers," says top judge.
Peter | 27.12.2001 13:51
Surprise as liberal judge advocates imprisonment without conviction. The lord chief justice, Lord Woolf, yesterday sparked a row over civil liberties when he suggested that the law could be changed to allow paedophiles not yet convicted of a crime to be locked up to protect the public.
England's senior judge said unconvicted paedophiles who were considered dangerous could be detained under a new type of "civil detention".
His remarks took lawyers, civil liberties bodies and government departments by surprise. Lord Woolf has been regarded by successive governments as an arch liberal and has often warned ministers against trampling on individual rights.
A spokesman for the lord chancellor's department said: "He's independent; he can say what he likes." The Home Office said the government was considering longer sentences and indeterminate sentences for some sex offenders but the idea of protective custody was not "under active consideration by us".
Lord Woolf's comments was seen yesterday as an encouragement to the government to consider extending to paedophiles its controversial plans for the detention of dangerous people with personality disorders who have committed no crime.
The plans, outlined a year ago in a white paper, would reform mental health legislation which allows compulsory detention only for treatable mental illnesses. Personality disorders are widely regarded as untreatable; paedophilia is notoriously difficult to treat.
John Wadham, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "I'm very surprised that the lord chief justice, whose role is to protect and safeguard our fundamental rights, should be suggesting provisions that will undermine and damage those rights."
He said the European convention on human rights would allow paedophiles to be detained against their will only if they were of unsound mind. "You can't detain somebody just because he's a paedophile."
Lord Woolf made his remarks in an interview on Radio 4's Today programme, in which he floated ideas for the ways in which the criminal justice system might respond to predatory paedophiles like Roy Whiting, convicted two weeks ago of murdering eight-year-old Sarah Payne. Whiting had served an earlier jail term for abducting and indecently assaulting another child, who survived. He had refused to undergo treatment.
Lord Woolf said: "It may well be, and this is a matter of very great sensitivity, that we have got to think, for those who are persistent offenders, of having some form of protective custody."
The law already allowed for a serious offender, considered to pose a significant risk of reoffending, to receive a discretionary life sentence.
But it might be necessary for parliament to consider further alternatives. "There may be a form of civil detention without having to prove a person has committed an actual crime."
It might be that "we would have to think about coming to the conclusion that there are a small, a very small minority of people, in the community against whom the public are entitled to be protected."
He added: "The problem is that if you have got an illness which can be treated, then you can be sent to a hospital com pulsorily because of the illness. But you have got to have an illness which is treatable for that purpose.
"We can't do that often with paedophiles because the condition is not treatable.
"And it may be, although this would be a huge infringement on the individual's rights, but we have got to think of the rights of those who would be offended against as well, if a case is made out that this person is a danger, that we would have to have some form of protective custody."
Paul Cavadino, director of policy at Nacro, the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, said it would be extremely dif ficult to assess the threat posed by an individual who had yet to commit an offence. "I can't see how it is realistically possible to judge that somebody is dangerous unless they have acted in a way that shows they are dangerous. In practice, that means that they have either committed an offence or attempted to do so."
His remarks took lawyers, civil liberties bodies and government departments by surprise. Lord Woolf has been regarded by successive governments as an arch liberal and has often warned ministers against trampling on individual rights.
A spokesman for the lord chancellor's department said: "He's independent; he can say what he likes." The Home Office said the government was considering longer sentences and indeterminate sentences for some sex offenders but the idea of protective custody was not "under active consideration by us".
Lord Woolf's comments was seen yesterday as an encouragement to the government to consider extending to paedophiles its controversial plans for the detention of dangerous people with personality disorders who have committed no crime.
The plans, outlined a year ago in a white paper, would reform mental health legislation which allows compulsory detention only for treatable mental illnesses. Personality disorders are widely regarded as untreatable; paedophilia is notoriously difficult to treat.
John Wadham, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "I'm very surprised that the lord chief justice, whose role is to protect and safeguard our fundamental rights, should be suggesting provisions that will undermine and damage those rights."
He said the European convention on human rights would allow paedophiles to be detained against their will only if they were of unsound mind. "You can't detain somebody just because he's a paedophile."
Lord Woolf made his remarks in an interview on Radio 4's Today programme, in which he floated ideas for the ways in which the criminal justice system might respond to predatory paedophiles like Roy Whiting, convicted two weeks ago of murdering eight-year-old Sarah Payne. Whiting had served an earlier jail term for abducting and indecently assaulting another child, who survived. He had refused to undergo treatment.
Lord Woolf said: "It may well be, and this is a matter of very great sensitivity, that we have got to think, for those who are persistent offenders, of having some form of protective custody."
The law already allowed for a serious offender, considered to pose a significant risk of reoffending, to receive a discretionary life sentence.
But it might be necessary for parliament to consider further alternatives. "There may be a form of civil detention without having to prove a person has committed an actual crime."
It might be that "we would have to think about coming to the conclusion that there are a small, a very small minority of people, in the community against whom the public are entitled to be protected."
He added: "The problem is that if you have got an illness which can be treated, then you can be sent to a hospital com pulsorily because of the illness. But you have got to have an illness which is treatable for that purpose.
"We can't do that often with paedophiles because the condition is not treatable.
"And it may be, although this would be a huge infringement on the individual's rights, but we have got to think of the rights of those who would be offended against as well, if a case is made out that this person is a danger, that we would have to have some form of protective custody."
Paul Cavadino, director of policy at Nacro, the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, said it would be extremely dif ficult to assess the threat posed by an individual who had yet to commit an offence. "I can't see how it is realistically possible to judge that somebody is dangerous unless they have acted in a way that shows they are dangerous. In practice, that means that they have either committed an offence or attempted to do so."
Peter
Homepage:
www.asperdis.org
Comments
Hide the following 10 comments
now you see how dictatorship
27.12.2001 16:44
absolutely disgraceful how this sensitive subject has become a football for reactionaries and authoritarians. obviously, a problem exists, but this is not going to, (nor is it designed to), solve it.
L A
now you see how dictatorship
27.12.2001 16:45
absolutely disgraceful how this sensitive subject has become a football for reactionaries and authoritarians. obviously, a problem exists, but this is not going to, (nor is it designed to), solve it.
L A
now you see how dictatorship
27.12.2001 16:45
absolutely disgraceful how this sensitive subject has become a football for reactionaries and authoritarians. obviously, a problem exists, but this is not going to, (nor is it designed to), solve it.
L A
A little of no relevance.
27.12.2001 17:13
Give him a likkle taster o' what it feels like in a kafkaesque nightmare with matching sound and light.
huggy bear.
Consequences
28.12.2001 01:00
Repercussion
lock'em all up
28.12.2001 01:03
dwight heet
Mr Woolf is a strange fellow
28.12.2001 13:52
By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent
28 December 2001
Dozens of convicted paedophiles are to have their cases reheard by the Court of Appeal amid concern that the methods used by police to investigate child abuse have led to serious miscarriages of justice.
Many of the reviews centre on children's homes but others involve step-parents whose convictions have been referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). The "test cases" will be followed by an inquiry by MPs into child-abuse prosecutions over the last 30 years amid charges that police "trawled" children's homes and prisons for new complainants.
The moves highlight the difficulty in securing safe convictions against paedophiles and follow a controversial proposal by Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, that some suspected sex offenders may need to be locked up before they have committed a crime.
Lawyers bringing the test cases have been working closely with an all-party parliamentary group, whose members include Baroness Williams of Crosby and the MP for Crosby, Claire Curtis-Thomas. Last week the group won an agreement from the Home Affairs Select Committee for an inquiry into child-abuse prosecutions, an issue many MPs believe has been ignored after the outrage over the trials of Sarah Payne's killer, Roy Whiting, and the pop mogul Jonathan King.
The group is particularly concerned about allegations investigated by Merseyside Police in the 1980s and 1990s. In a test case to be heard by the Court of Appeal in January a careworker at a Merseyside children's home, sentenced to 14 years in jail last year, is to have his case reheard after a key witness, a convicted criminal, withdrew his complaint, claiming he was encouraged to give evidence by the police.
The Court of Appeal will also hear the case of a 60-year-old careworker from Devon who claims the evidence against him consists of uncorroborated allegations made by serving prisoners. In a third case referred tothe court, a careworker from Penarth, south Wales, claims allegations against him relate to "non-specific events" over a long time. His solicitor, Tim Hacket said: "[South Wales] police deliberately search out ex-pupils, who generally [have] poor self-esteem or previous convictions, and then suggest names."
Ms Curtis-Thomas said: "A significant proportion of the victims in these cases have been identified while serving prison sentences or are known to the police in other contexts."
The select committee is also expected to look at the effect of compensation. Victims who allege child abuse are usually guaranteed compensation once they have achieved a conviction in the criminal courts.
In a letter to Chris Mullin, the select committee chairman, Ms Curtis-Thomas said: "There is much criticism about how the police trawl for victims and the way they conduct their interviews with the individuals who have allegedly been abused by leading the complainant into making or asserting allegations put forward by the police." She said once a careworker had been convicted, other complaints usually followed, yet many allegations referred to events 20 or 30 years ago that were hard to contest.
Sex offenders now make up a third of all new cases considered by the CCRC. A separate category of cases, also to be heard by the Court of Appeal, include step-parents convicted of child abuse many years after the event. In one case, a man from Kent had his conviction for raping his step-daughter quashed after the CCRC questioned the strength of the evidence.
Children's welfare groups said challenges to convictions should not deter the police from investigating allegations of abuse. Shaun Kelly, of NCH, formerly the National Children's Homes, said: "Very few people actually are convicted of child abuse. We are concerned about the number of allegations which are not made and the large number of cases which go unreported. The experience of child abuse which took place 15 and 20 years ago in this country is very similar to what happened in Ireland and Canada – all these people can't be lying."
* A man was arrested yesterday in connection with the murder of a suspected paedophile found battered to death at his home, police said. George Crawford, 64, had been due to appear at Manchester Crown Court next month over allegations he abused four children in the 1970s and 1980s. Mr Crawford, who had no previous convictions for sex abuse, was expected to deny all charges.
Dave
Homepage:
http://stopabuse.org/SAFE_CONVICTIONS.html
Yay for child molestors!
29.12.2001 03:37
chris
chris
e-mail:
cprice@imsmaxims.com
Child Molestors
29.12.2001 16:01
Tommo
the 120 days of sodom
30.12.2001 00:01
dwight heet