Sex offenders who change their name without notifying police could face up to five years in prison after campaigners warned dangerous predators are going under the radar
Sex offenders who change their name without notifying police could be jailed for five years.
The Government has announced it will close a loophole which allowed Rose West, Vanessa George and Ian Huntley to change their names. Labour’s Sarah Champion – who campaigned for the law to change – said she was delighted her call had been accepted.
Ms Champion previously told MPs she was horrified that convicted sex abusers were allowed to assume new identities. Under new laws going through Parliament, offenders will have to seek police approval to change their names on official documents.
It followed fears that dangerous predators can go under the radar. Last year Ms Champion pointed to the case of Soham killer Huntley, who had previously changed his name to Ian Nixon. This meant previous offences didn’t show up in vetting before he was employed as a school caretaker.
He went on to murder schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells. In 2020 it emerged that Rose West had paid £36 to change her name to Jennifer Jones in an effort to distance herself from her crimes. She is serving a life sentence after being convicted of 10 murders.
In a letter to Ms Champion, Home Office minister Laura Farris wrote: “We consider that five years is a severe maximum sentence that will provide sentencing judges with a wide range of punishments depending on the circumstances.” Ms Farris admitted that few restrictions have previously been placed on an individual’s ability to change their name.
She said the new restrictions would be “targeted at those deemed to pose the greatest risk”. Under the new law – put forward as an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill – sex offenders will have to notify police seven days before they first start using a new name.
This will include aliases and names used online. If they fail to do so, they could be sentenced to up to five years behind bars. Police will be able to refuse such requests – although they will be able to make some exemptions, such as marriage, religious conversion or changing gender.
Ms Farris wrote: “It will enable the police to update intelligence systems and share information with relevant agencies in advance of a new name being used.”
Ms Chapman said: ‘I have spent many nights awake worrying about the risks of the current system. It makes a mockery of all the name based safeguarding schemes like Clare’s Law (the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme) and indeed the DBS scheme (Disclosure and Barring Service), when all you need to do to avoid detection is change your name by deed poll. It been a hard fight to make Ministers understand the risks, but it is all worth it to protect others.”
She said she was “enormously proud” of the victims and survivors who used their experiences to “show the horror that occurs when abusers exploit the existing loophole”.
In March last year she told the Commons: “Unless this loophole is closed, it makes a nonsense of the schemes the public rely on to detect offenders. For example, the sex offenders register, the child sex offenders disclosure system, the domestic violence disclosure scheme and the Disclosure and Barring Service all rely on having the correct name.”
Tory MP Mark Fletcher put forward a Bill demanding that those on the Sex Offenders’ Register have no right to change their names. The House of Commons heard warnings that in some cases they “end up working with children and vulnerable people”.
Mr Fletcher said figures like Rose West, Ian Huntley, Vanessa George and paedophile Ben Lewis had changed their names under current laws. He said he was horrified when contacted by a constituent who said the person who had abused them was changing their name.
He said: “Registered sex offenders are able to change their name by deed poll, both enrolled and unenrolled, allowing them to go under the radar of the authorities and putting society’s most vulnerable at risk. Bizarrely, the onus for keeping details up to date on the sex offenders register lies with the offender, rather than with the police and other authorities keeping a close eye on the offender.”
