Sex criminals could be working with children after changing names

March 28, 2021

Thousands of sex criminals could be working with children – after changing their names for just £15, warns former Home Secretary Sajid Javid

Ex-Home Secretary Sajid Javid calls for changes to tackle child sexual abuse
900 convicted sex offenders have paid £15 to change their names by deed poll
He calls for school nurse revival to make it easier for children to report abuse

Thousands of sex offenders could be working with children because they have changed their names by deed poll to escape detection, according to a hard-hitting new report by former Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

Mr Javid found shocking evidence of what he called an ‘epidemic’ of child sexual abuse in the UK that has been made worse by the lockdown.

Last night, the Tory MP – who has been tipped for a return to the Cabinet in the next reshuffle – called for sweeping changes to tackle child sexual abuse, including a demand for social media giant Facebook to abandon plans to encrypt its Messenger service, which would mean that abusive videos and images could be shared anonymously.

Because young people often feel safer discussing sensitive issues with healthcare professionals, the Government should consider reversing the significant decline in school nurses, says Sajid Javid

Mr Javid also calls for the reintroduction of school nurses to make it easier for children to report incidents of abuse to a trusted figure.

The 100-page report is the conclusions of a commission that Mr Javid led for The Centre for Social Justice think-tank, including experts and survivors of abuse.

It warns that the Covid lockdowns have created the ‘perfect storm’, forcing children to spend more time at home with potential abusers and preventing them from reporting assaults to trusted adults such as teachers.

Not only were victims being sexually abused more frequently during lockdown, because they were spending more time with their abuser, but illegal online activity had also rocketed.

The Internet Watch Foundation said that nine million attempts to view child sexual abuse materials were made in the first month of lockdown alone.

It found a sharp rise in indecent images taken by children themselves after being tricked or coerced, due to spending more time online during lockdown.

The 100-page report is the conclusions of a commission that Mr Javid led for The Centre for Social Justice think-tank, including experts and survivors of abuse

Alarmingly, the report says at least 900 convicted sex offenders – and possibly thousands – could be operating in jobs that bring them into contact with young people because they have taken the simple expedient of paying £15 to change their names by deed poll.

At no stage is an applicant required to disclose their criminal history – which the report recommends should change.

It says the current stipulation that those on the sex offenders register must tell the police if they change their names within three days of doing so ‘is essentially an honours system with the onus on the individual to keep the police up to date… over 900 offenders may have changed their names without notifying the police and are now living under the radar’.

The report adds that as the 900 offenders ‘only represent data released by 16 of the 43 police forces’ then ‘it is likely then that the actual figure is far higher and thousands of registered sex offenders are off the radar.

‘The worst-case scenario outcome is not unfeasible: that some of this number have acquired fresh names and are working or living alongside children. We must locate these individuals and safeguard children they may have access to. We recommend the Home Office commissions an urgent inquiry into this matter.’

The report makes 96 policy recommendations, across Government departments, including:

Restoring school nurse numbers to pre-2010 levels;
Training all school staff to spot signs of abuse;
A crackdown on internet bosses whose security features protect the identity of abusers;
New laws to curb live-streamed child sexual abuse;
A new ‘victim’s law’ to guarantee the rights of victims and support services;
Victims and survivors to be told when their abusers are released from prison to help them to avoid traumatic encounters;
A new law with harsher penalties for forcing children to carry drugs inside their bodies.

Mr Javid said: ‘We’re facing an epidemic of child sexual abuse in this country. Although the Government and industry are doing valuable work to protect children… sadly, the pandemic will have made things far, far worse.

‘As we recover our freedoms, we must ensure that we take the tough measures needed to protect our kids against these dreadful crimes that robs them of their childhood and leaves deep scars for life.’

On my first day as Home Secretary in 2018, I was taken aside and warned about the toll my responsibilities could take.

Of these, I assumed dealing with terrorists would weigh the most heavily. I was mistaken.

It wasn’t until I visited the front lines of the fight against child sexual abuse that I realised the horrifying truth about its scale and severity.

At the National Crime Agency, I was shown intelligence suggesting that an astonishing 80,000 people in the UK posed a sexual threat to children online. By this time last year, that had surged to 300,000.

Under lockdown, I fear this epidemic of abuse has become far worse. Two thirds of sexual assaults are carried out by close friends or family members, meaning that scores of children have spent the past year isolating with their abuser with little chance of escape.

Abusers have also increased their activity online. In Australia, predators set up web forums to discuss ways of twisting restrictions to their advantage, while in the UK nine million attempts to access child sexual abuse content were made in March last year alone.

My colleagues in Government are appalled by these horrendous violations and are doing valuable work to fight back. However, it has become clear that on multiple fronts, the threat to our children is growing faster than law enforcement can respond.

We’re winning battles, but losing the war.

That’s why after I left Government in 2020, the first commitment I made was to lead a no-holds barred investigation into child sexual abuse and exploitation in the UK. Along with The Centre for Social Justice, I assembled a team of expert commissioners and courageous survivors. Together, we asked the questions that others wouldn’t, to tackle a problem that has too often been ignored.

Tomorrow we publish our final report. Its findings are uncomfortable in places.

However, as well as hard truths, I believe the report offers a sense of hope. None of the problems we’ve found is insurmountable. There are clear opportunities to do more.

Our report identifies almost 100 of these – a cross-Government agenda for turning the tide on this vile form of offending.

That starts with finding our blind spots. The grooming gangs scandal is a reminder of what can happen when the agencies tasked with protecting our children are slow to act and systemic failures are allowed to persist.

We were disturbed to discover a loophole that allows child abusers to effectively remove themselves from the sex offenders register, simply by changing their name.

Not only does this mean that the police lose sight of an offender’s whereabouts, it also means dangerous individuals can obtain a clean Disclosure and Barring Service check to work with children and toddlers. More than 900 convicted abusers may already have taken advantage of this.

It’s also crucial we don’t miss the signs when a child is being victimised, and that we support them to tell a trusted adult. Particularly for those being abused at home, the best place for this can be school.

Because young people often feel safer discussing sensitive issues with healthcare professionals, the Government should consider reversing the significant decline in school nurses. Even when a child isn’t ready to talk, nurses are well placed to notice when problems such as sexually transmitted infections point to much more serious issues.

Protecting victims is only part of the puzzle. If we’re serious about stamping out child sex abuse, then we must do more to go after offenders. I’m immensely concerned by the culture of weak to non-existent sentencing that’s developed around child sex abuse.

We found it difficult to believe that guidelines recommend the same punishment for stealing a £500 bicycle and viewing images of a child being raped.

Clearly, the Sentencing Council should review these in full. However, this is also an opportunity to correct long-standing injustices and anticipate future types of offending.

Offenders who hire traffickers to find children for them to torture and rape live via video links, receive on average a mere two-year custodial sentence.

Morally, directing the abuse of a child in Manila is no different from doing it in person in Manchester. Both offenders should be punished alike.

British gangs that force children to insert and smuggle drugs in their bodies are committing, in my view, a sexual violation. They should be treated as such.

And when perpetrators groom the children they’re exploiting to commit crimes, in part to undermine their credibility in the eyes of the police, we should find ways of wiping the victims’ records so that they can start putting their lives back together.

The list of threats facing children is long, as is our history of shortcomings.

Not all the solutions are easy or straightforward. However we have a duty – both to confront evil and protect the futures of the most precious members of our society. If that isn’t worth it, then I don’t know what is.

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