Sex offenders' right to appeal from registration (UK)

16 February 2011, Westminster. Home Secretary Theresa May said the government would make the "minimum possible changes" to comply with an April 2010 Supreme Court ruling which opened the way for thousands of sex offenders to challenge whether they should be "labelled for life" by being included on the sex offenders register without any chance of review.

The Supreme Court backed a case brought by two convicted sex offenders who challenged their indefinite inclusion on the register. They claimed that the lack of opportunity to demonstrate they had reformed was a breach of their human rights. Lord Phillips, the President of the Court, had said: "It is obvious that there must be some circumstances in which an appropriate tribunal could reliably conclude that the risk of an individual carrying out a further sexual offence can be discounted to the extent that continuance of notification requirements is unjustified." The Judges had stressed that the ruling did not mean the sex offenders register itself was illegal and said that it was entirely reasonable and lawful to monitor someone for life if they were believed to be a danger to society. The Judges said there was no evidence to show it was impossible to identify which sex offenders had reformed. Home Office research submitted during the case showed that 75% of sex offenders who were monitored over a 21-year period were not reconvicted of any offence.

Speaking in Parliament on 16 February 2011, Home Secretary Theresa May said the government would make the "minimum possible changes" to comply with the 2010 Supreme Court ruling. She said ministers were appalled by the ruling and the bar for appeals would be set as "high as possible". Sex offenders will only be able to appeal 15 years after leaving prison. "Offenders can only apply for consideration of removal after waiting 15 years following release from custody - in England and Wales there will be no automatic appeals," she said. "The final decision of whether an offender should remain on the register will be down to the police, not the courts as in Scotland. "There will be no right of appeal against the police's decision to keep an offender on the register. That decision will be final."

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the appeals system "must be extremely tough".

According to a BBC News report, a former police officer who worked in child protection, is concerned about the decision - particularly in relation to child sex offenders. "These people are like leopards, they don't change their spots," he said. "What we will end up with is potentially a very dangerous situation where someone has committed offences in the past and be able to say they haven't committed any new offences and therefore don't present a risk. But they are a risk in the same way as an alcoholic is always an alcoholic."