LORD STEVENS - former Met Police Chief


"Sadly for me, I am something of an expert on paedophiles.

"I spent 10 years as a senior policeman leading a worldwide government study, together with the FBI and other international law organisations, to find out what makes predatory sex attackers and killers like them tick.

"I met serial killers, child sex murderers, paedophiles, survivors and their families, the cops who hunt them and pick up the pieces afterwards, and read too many terrifying anguished case histories that I've since made myself forget.

"That 10 year investigation revealed a number of unquestionable truths, not just to me but all of our team. They are these: First, and most importantly, and with not a shadow of a doubt, predatory paedophiles can NEVER be cured.

"Alongside that, their crimes ALWAYS get worse - their sick urges always escalate.

"It's because the offences they commit never quite match up to the perverted fantasies that drive them, so they are constantly searching for the next step up that will.

"You also can't change their behaviour - their urges NEVER leave them.

"That's why, unlike 'normal' crime, they never grow out of it or get fed up with it and the repercussions... their desire to offend can continue until their dying day.

"Also, that their rate of offending ALWAYS increases, and the more they get away with the more they will commit.

"I don't just think these things - I know them as fact.

"Yet even so, I have always refused to back America's Megan's Law - which allows total access of detailed information about the identity and location of paedophiles to the general public.

"However, those same facts I list above are exactly why I totally back the introduction of Sarah's Law in Britain.

"Let me explain...

"No civilised country - and that's what Britain is - can tolerate vigilante law.

"You cannot allow a system to develop that risks allowing people to take the law into their own hands.

"That is the danger of Megan's Law. It is too far-reaching, makes the information - including mugshots - too widely available on demand often via the internet to all and sundry whatever their mental state or motives or background may be.

"Inevitably, it makes the danger of vigilante attacks more likely - though in truth I've seen no real hard evidence that they have been widespread even in the USA.

"Sarah's Law, on the other hand, is totally different - which is why I back it and, I suspect, so do many others in the police world.

"Here the method of getting the information means that the risk of random vigilantes is massively reduced

"You'd have to be a parent or a child carer, on the electoral role with a permanent address, have a clean criminal record and no history of violence, and only when police have checked you out would you be allowed access to information regarding your specific local area.

"In other words, in your village or estate but not the one next door.

"Coupled with that will be swingeing prison sentences that would immediately punish any hint of vigilanteism.

"That's very different from the American system, much safer, much more controllable.

"There's also the fact that you can trust the great British public about the way they will handle such information.

"Sarah's Law is, of course, named after Sarah Payne who was abducted and murdered by a serial predatory paedophile called Roy Whiting.

"That crime devastated Britain, but those who oppose Sarah's Law often point to several unfortunate events that happened during the Name and Shame controversy that followed as proof that making information about paedophiles public leads to vigilante behaviour.

"I think they're wrong. What it showed was how frustrated people can react when they're frightened, denied information about how to protect their children, and have no idea of what else to do.

"I believe that if Sarah's Law is introduced we won't get outbreaks of violence, what we'll see is good old British commonsense come into play and parents simply using the information to avoid danger, keep an eye out for dangerous individuals, and steer their children away from risky areas or situations.

"If there are vigilante incidents, then those selfsame families will absolutely approve of the full force of the law being used to punish the wrongdoers.

"Yet still the "We Know Whats Best For You" brigade attack Sarah's Law.

"It's totally unnecessary, they insist - and anyway you can't trust the British public.

"Just last week Welsh chief constable Terry Grange attacked the idea, saying controlling paedophiles must all be left to the police, probation service and social workers. I think he's wrong.

"He also specifically attacked the News of the World for launching the Sarah's Law campaign. Again, I think he's wrong.

"The public response the very next day from Ken Jones, the RESPECTED urbane and skilful head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, that the debate is perfectly legitimate sent an important message.

"It was one I got repeatedly from other law officers and academics worldwide during the government sex crimes inquiry I chaired for a decade into "Psychological Offender Profiling".

"In other words, how and why they did it and - as importantly - how and why they got away with it.

"We travelled gathering evidence to places as far afield as the FBI HQ in the USA and Russia (they'd just caught a sex killer who tortured and killed over 60 victims) searching for the facts.

"We made certain too to examine in detail theories and views of probation officers, social workers, even paedophile apologists about how to deal with child sex abusers.

"It never failed to amaze me how some of these people seemed obsessed with the idea that paedophiles are simply ill, that they are victims too, that their human rights must be respected and defended at all cost.

"Well, they may indeed be mentally ill - but they sexually abuse and kill children, which is the greater priority?!

"I'm afraid I put the human rights of the victims far ahead of the human rights of the offenders.

"The people I care about are the victims and victims families who often never escape the consequences of an attack from one of these "ill" paedophiles.

"It also chilled me how paedophiles knew just how to play off these people against the system trying to prevent their atrocities.

"We saw some child abusers cynically using well-meaning "programmes" meant to stop them re-offending as ways to simply learn new techniques in how to evade recapture.

"These often naive though well-meaning do-gooders spread many myths about ideas like Megan's Law, and are now using them to attack Sarah's Law.

"They're right to be concerned about vigilanteism - but they totally exaggerate the scale of what has actually happened in the USA since Megan's Law was introduced.

"In a country of 300 million people with a massively-higher murder rate than the UK there have been just four deaths.

"Far too many of course, but all committed by ex-jailbirds with histories of violence who travelled hundreds of miles to carry out their crimes after getting their targets details off the internet.

"As I spell out above, people like that just couldn't get the information here.

"Then there's the claim public disclosure would drive paedophiles underground.

"Well, they're underground anyway if parents don't know where they are, aren't they?

"Except it is sanctioned by the state, hidden by social workers with the police effectively forced to aid and abett them - until they strike again.

"And have you noticed how it's the victims that pays the lifelong price, the paedophile simply gets locked up again...and the social workers and probation officers who are supposed to have prevented it happening too often walk away unscathed?

"I believe this "controlled public disclosure" issue is simple. Its all about a parent's right to protect their child, a child's right to be safe.