Sex offenders free to abuse children after changing ID

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Times:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sex-offenders-free-to-abuse-children-after-changing-id-bpdlx59p0

I know a while ago a MNer did some hard work chasing the DBS people about if changing name / sex created a loophole.

And yes, yes it does.

In the most serious cases men barred for life from working with children used their new name to gain employment in schools and homes where they committed multiple further offences.

One, who worked as an au pair, was jailed last year after police in Belgium uncovered a paedophile ring with nine million child abuse images. Another is in custody in Spain suspected of abusing 36 young girls at a school.

Both were British teachers convicted of child abuse and placed on the sex offenders register. Each changed his name by deed poll, acquired a passport and in one case clearance from the disclosure and barring service (DBS) to work with children. The Times has been shown a copy of the DBS certificate.

A source close to the DBS said it was aware of cases in which registered sex offenders had, by changing their name, gained DBS certificates clearing them to work with children. It wanted to find a way to “close this loophole”.

Sarah Champion, the Rotherham MP, has been urging the government to close “this gaping hole in safeguarding”. The Home Office announced this month a “time-limited review” of name changes “to better understand whether current processes are being exploited”.

Potential solutions include placing a digital marker on the files of all registered sex offenders at the DVLA and the passport office, or to remove the do-it-yourself option for the name change process.

DBS checks are supposed to include all prior names and one of the checks done on a person is supposed to be that they haven’t changed names unless they say they have. And then obviously the police databases are looked at under all names. I used to work with DBS applications and I saw some get rejected because they omitted to say they’d changed names. so if sex offenders are changing names and getting clean DBS checks then it’s this step that’s the failure. You are never going to successfully campaign to stop name changes of convicted offenders when the moj will sometimes give new identities to criminals as part of rehabilitation. So we need to improve the DBS and post release checks. I’m not sure what that would look like though.

So we need to improve the DBS and post release checks. I’m not sure what that would look like though.

Does anyone recall the threads in which FWR discussed the police forces that automatically are known to grant requests to be removed for SO registers so a name is no longer flagged? It's so easy in some areas that the men involved move there for a brief period in order to get this done.

And there are some police forces that seem more ready than others to accede to redacting potentially prejudicial information from enhanced DBS checks.

Change all you like - but unless you are in witness protection, you should legally have to disclose a change of name (all changes of name). After all, in what instances do you need to prove your ID (it’s hardly every day is it?)?

@KittenKong

Change all you like - but unless you are in witness protection, you should legally have to disclose a change of name (all changes of name). After all, in what instances do you need to prove your ID (it’s hardly every day is it?)?

You do for DBS in theory! I guess a simple fix would be a symbol on drivers license and passport to alert the reader that person has had a previous name. Easily doable surely? Would allow the privacy to keep your prior name secret in day to day life but flag it up when it matters

If you don’t tell, they won’t look surely?

Previous name, ‘n/a’. Yes, that would work because noone would ever try to hide the truth would they?

@KittenKong

Change all you like - but unless you are in witness protection, you should legally have to disclose a change of name (all changes of name). After all, in what instances do you need to prove your ID (it’s hardly every day is it?)?

There needs to be some way of tracking name changes (for all sorts of reasons). It shouldn't be possible to just "disappear" by simply changing your name.

That's really interesting Partin . Somewhere on here are some threads where posters tried to get the DBS to clarify how name changing worked when it's a criminal? offence to identify someone who transitioned previous names. If I recall correctly it was hand waved away with something about people being responsible and advising DBS confidentially?

And yes of course this is not about trans people. It's about a culture that's developed where too many organisations (of all kinds) have been able to undermine safeguarding by stating or believing that the rules don't apply to this group (think Rotherham, certain religious groups, sporting organisations, etc).
It's like saying safeguarding rules shouldn't apply to women because statistics etc.... Of course they should - they apply to everybody. It's when groups insist on special exceptions and rules for them, that's when the red flags must fly.

See, you should listen to Mumsnet. Women on here have been banging on about this for years. Hopefully now somebody might listen.

AFAIR, the response from DBS was that criminals were responsible for reporting any crimes committed under their old name, MrsOverton, yes.

Oh god this makes me feel sick, actually physically sick.

This has to be the issue that tips the scales back to sense? Please.

@MrsOvertonsWindow

That's really interesting Partin . Somewhere on here are some threads where posters tried to get the DBS to clarify how name changing worked when it's a criminal? offence to identify someone who transitioned previous names. If I recall correctly it was hand waved away with something about people being responsible and advising DBS confidentially?

And yes of course this is not about trans people. It's about a culture that's developed where too many organisations (of all kinds) have been able to undermine safeguarding by stating or believing that the rules don't apply to this group (think Rotherham, certain religious groups, sporting organisations, etc).
It's like saying safeguarding rules shouldn't apply to women because statistics etc.... Of course they should - they apply to everybody. It's when groups insist on special exceptions and rules for them, that's when the red flags must fly.

It’s been about 7 years since I worked with DBS checks but when I worked there it worked like this: the application is submitted through employer and application goes to third party such as capita who then check the application /ID for basic errors (this was me!) and then send it to Government DBS service. I do remember noticing some trans applications this way. Applications couldn’t be made direct to DBS for most people but there was an exception to the rule for trans people who didn’t wish to reveal their birth names/status and they could apply direct to DBS through separate transgender service. Obviously if someone applied through this separate way they weren’t trying to hide their prior names (unless they changed it multiple times I suppose).

DBS office was always a black box but I would assume checks between application routes would be same.

If your DBS was rejected due to application issue they would send it through post to us. we got name rejections quite a lot, from memory a lot of people who has changed their names as kids and didn’t think it counted. The other obvious case were married women who didn’t put maiden names (if I saw a “mrs” on form I’d ring before application went through but a lot got missed).

So the checks did pick up these names changes - they must search some databases.

However, DBS is fairly useless for picking up foreign crimes so I imagine it also wouldn’t pick up foreigners who’d changed their name before coming to U.K.

@ArabellaScott

AFAIR, the response from DBS was that criminals were responsible for reporting any crimes committed under their old name, MrsOverton, yes.

What? Do you have a source for this?

@MrsOvertonsWindow I’ve reread your post and I’m not sure I answered your actual question so to clarify. I think the DBS considered the separate “discrete transgender service” a way around the employer knowing the “dead-name”. Which if the checks are as good as they should be i think is a fine solution . There is a risk that trans person will lie and pretend they have always had that name but if anything they are probably less risky to do this than an average person since … well not everyone passes.

Partin,
There are some posters on here with fantastic records of threads. @R0wantrees may be able to help find the ones where people have had responses from the DBS ?

Thank you Partin If I recall, the challenge is what happens when there's not an honest disclosure about name change and therefore all the normal checks cannot be carried out.
Do you know are there other groups of citizens who are allowed by the DBS to avoid some areas of these statutory checks?

Just for comparison purposes regarding DBS rooting out the dangerous applicants I post this:

twitter.com/wearefaircop/status/1417527049972035586?s=21

@PumpkinSpiceWoman you ought to be ashamed of yourself. On thread after thread I see you excusing and advocating for the abuse and mistreatment of women. Exactly whose payroll are you on? Stonewall's? You're a disgrace.

@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz

This is staggering.

And yet we're accused on here daily of hysteria when it's discussed. Transphobic for worrying about the repercussions for kids. Bigots because we assume anyone looking to self ID could be a predator. Because apparently no one's going to go to this much trouble to get access to kids.

And then they do.

But the feelings of a few (mainly adult men) are more important.

We won't see the usual suspects on this thread that's for sure.

Thisnis sickening.

Partin, there were a few threads on here discussing it, I recall letters or FOIs from DBS etc which came down to that. 'we rely on people disclosing previous names', effectively. I will try and have a root around in the search box later.

@PumpkinSpiceWoman

This is feck all to do with trans issues. And you know that what these men did is already illegal, so it's a stretch calling it a "loophole".

As ever you are the one making it a 'trans issue', no one else was discussing it from a trans pov until you did.

@PumpkinSpiceWoman

This is feck all to do with trans issues. And you know that what these men did is already illegal, so it's a stretch calling it a "loophole".

This is, and will be abused by male sex offenders and paedophiles, trans or otherwise, until it's shut down.

Partin

That's interesting about the names and titles - I had a DBS application take ages the first time I did it because I put "ms" as my title. It got sent back because they assumed I was a divorced woman and asked me to give my maiden name...

You said that this would get sent back because of a name change in childhood that wasn't disclosed, or forgetting to put a maiden name - so there must be some way that undisclosed name changes are checked.

So how are these criminals slipping through the net?

@MrsOvertonsWindow

Thank you Partin If I recall, the challenge is what happens when there's not an honest disclosure about name change and therefore all the normal checks cannot be carried out. Do you know are there other groups of citizens who are allowed by the DBS to avoid some areas of these statutory checks?

Honestly the check I did wasn’t a safety check. It was to reduce the amount of basic errors the dbs had to deal with. We were minimum wage and I’m sure some of my colleagues just clicked submit without looking. The most common errors I saw were people applying for the highest level DBS check for someone who’s job didn’t require it (which you can’t do) and people putting non-existent addresses. I don’t know for sure if the transgender service skipped any checks but I doubt it, if anything , having the DBS process it from the start meant you probably had it looked at more not less.

@MrsOvertonsWindow

Thank you Partin If I recall, the challenge is what happens when there's not an honest disclosure about name change and therefore all the normal checks cannot be carried out. Do you know are there other groups of citizens who are allowed by the DBS to avoid some areas of these statutory checks?

The other area as I mentioned earlier is foreign people. You provide 3 years (or was it 5 I can’t remember ?) of address history and the DBS check for crimes at that address during those times and see if the individual was involved. If your address history is in Europe or further then they don’t check. I guess you could also lie about your address but I don’t know if that would be picked up?

@InvisibleDragon

Partin

That's interesting about the names and titles - I had a DBS application take ages the first time I did it because I put "ms" as my title. It got sent back because they assumed I was a divorced woman and asked me to give my maiden name...

You said that this would get sent back because of a name change in childhood that wasn't disclosed, or forgetting to put a maiden name - so there must be some way that undisclosed name changes are checked.

So how are these criminals slipping through the net?

Most common was women accidentally putting themselves down as “Mr”!