More than 700 sex offenders slip off police radar over three-year period

Calling the situation a scandal, MP Sarah Champion said the key reason so many offenders went missing was because they had changed their names. Abuse survivors want a new law to ban sex offenders from changing their names to escape authorities and their pasts. The Home Office has carried out two internal reviews of the issue, but has not published the findings from either exercise.

In Hampshire, criminal record checks by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) showed 58 sex offenders had supplied incorrect or missed out personal information such as past names including aliases in the last three years. The county currently has a total of 2,893 sex offenders.

What is the current law?

If someone is added to the Sex Offenders Register, they are required to provide certain personal details to the police, including their name and any aliases they have been known by, their current address and passport details.

They have to visit a police station annually to comply with notification requirements, and to inform the authorities of any change to personal details.

If any of these personal details change, they must notify the police within three days or offenders can face up to five years in prison.

The findings

Using requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI), the BBC Shared Data Unit found:

- Hundreds of registered sex offenders (729) have either been recorded by police as having gone missing or were wanted for arrest in the past three financial years - 31 of the 45 police forces covering the UK were able to provide those data

- At least 1,457 registered sex offenders have notified police forces of name changes/aliases in the past three financial years - 21 of the 45 police forces covering the UK were able to provide those data

- More than 2,000 (2,190) criminal records checks carried out by the Disclosure & Barring Service in the past three financial years flagged up both that the applicants had cautions or convictions and that they had supplied incorrect or missed out personal details eg past names/aliases

- There have been 5,518 offences committed by registered sex offenders of failing to comply with notification requirements in the past three financial years. Those offences can include, but are not limited to: not notifying police of a name change/intention to travel abroad or within the UK/not notifying police of a change of address or circumstances such as beginning to live in a household with a child under the age of 18. 32 of the 45 police forces covering the UK were able to provide those data

- Nearly 6,750 (6740) prosecutions have begun for offences by registered sex offenders of breaches of a sexual harm prevention order/interim order/foreign travel order in England and Wales in the same past three financial years

- There were at least 66,139 registered sex offenders living in the UK, according to latest figures, which 43 out of the 45 police forces were able to provide

- Prison services across the UK were unable to answer under FOI how many sex offenders had changed their name while in prison in the past three financial years

- HM Passport Office could not answer under FOI how many times it had contacted individual police forces when any sex offenders on their watch list, also known as the ‘stop list’ or ‘browse’, had applied for new passports or to change their personal details

- Both the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency, which covers Great Britain, and Northern Ireland’s Driver & Vehicle Agency would neither confirm nor deny they held data on how many times checks of new applications for driving licences had revealed the applicants had criminal records and had supplied incorrect or false details in the past three financial years. They said to confirm or deny those data were held, might risk an increase in fraudulent or false applications

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Parliaments across the UK have faced calls for legal reform because sex offenders were going off police radars. Critics say the law is too easy to bypass because it places the onus on offenders to report changes in their circumstances.

The Home Office says it has ‘some of the toughest powers in the world to deal with sex offenders’. The former chief of Derbyshire police, Mick Creedon, was appointed in March by then-Home Secretary Priti Patel to review the police's management of registered sex offenders.

A separate internal review was also carried out into the scale and nature of offenders changing their name. The department said ministers were considering both reports but had not published the findings.

A Home Office spokesperson said it had also strengthened its regime for managing offenders through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act. The act made it easier to impose restrictions via civil orders called Sexual Harm Prevention Orders for anyone convicted or cautioned for a sexual or violent offence.

Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham, where at least 1,400 children were found to have been exploited between 1997 and 2013, raised the issue in Parliament that registered sex offenders (RSOs) were changing their names then applying for fresh identity documents. Below are her responses to our questions.

She said: ‘I still believe that the main reason why the police are losing track of so many registered sex offenders is due to the failure of a system based on notification requirements. Placing the onus of self-reporting changes in personal information on offenders who have already breached the law will always lead to dangerous people going ‘missing’ from the police. There may be other reasons for some of these cases, but the scale of offenders who we know are changing their names suggests this is the key reason why so many disappear.’

A spokesperson for Nacro, a charity which provides a support service to people with criminal records, said: ‘Under the current rules, someone who is on the sex offenders register must inform the police of a name change. The police then have the power to inform others should they think they need to know. This also applies to those convicted of terrorism offences.

‘The individual must also disclose previous names when applying for work that requires a criminal record check, applying for a passport, travelling/working abroad where a visa is required and other scenarios where formal identification is required, and a question is raised with regards to previous names and/or aliases. Any criminal record which is not spent should be disclosed during this process.’

A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘Public protection is a priority for this government and we have some of the toughest powers in the world to deal with sex offenders. To ensure registered sex offenders cannot hide their criminal past, they must notify police of their personal details every year and whenever they change – this includes any name changes.

‘Failure to comply, including providing false information, is a criminal offence punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. We have further strengthened the regime for managing registered sex offenders and those who pose a risk through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act.’