MPs request end to sex offenders name change

[TrombonesAreNotBones]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-64760314

May be worth keeping an eye on this, see how it develops, one to watch (as MNHQ used to say).

Thanks for that @TrombonesAreNotBones

Thank you for this!

Pleased to see this is a cross bench project led by one Conservative MP (Mark Fletcher) and one Labour MP (Sarah Champion).

extract:

Ms Champion said her written parliamentary questions had unveiled the scale of the issue, including the fact that more than 16,000 registered sex offenders had breached their notification requirements between 2015 and 2020.
She said: "People are incredulous when I tell them registered sex offenders are changing their names to evade detection.
"This loophole is deeply concerning and there is considerable evidence of its devastating consequences.

Champion’s constituency is Rotherham, which was the location of the perhaps the highest profile of all the grooming gang scandals

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Champion
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal

And Fletcher is the Tory who won Dennis Skinner’s legendary Labour safe seat in 2019:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Fletcher_(politician)

Dennis Skinner, who was famously a long standing member of the left wing of the Labour Party had held the seat for an astonishing 49 years (since 1970). Known as the Beast of Bolsover, Skinner’s constituency is emblematic of the fall of Labour’s Red Wall.

Fletcher is likely to be recognisant that he is in his seat due to ‘borrowed’ Labour votes (as BoJo acknowledged).

So this feels significant, although I am annoyed by the BBC giving Fletcher top billing and only mentioning Sarah Champion further down.

Will be interesting to see exactly who objects to a proposal for legal change that would disadvantage paedophiles and rapists.

(Any changes to the current unenrolled Deed Poll custom would need to take account of victims of DV fleeing abusers and changing name to facilitate their own safety…
Perhaps making it a solicitor declaration type situation where the solicitor is tasked with checking sex offender registries before signing and stamping the paperwork would work? A bit like the conveyancing process for property purchases.? Obvs would involve solicitor’s fees but should still be cheaper than say, making a Will/buying a house? And DV charities could perhaps facilitate the process for survivors via their current legal teams and some ring fenced grants from gov?

Those who are changing name for purposes other than anonymity/safety can just use the current ‘Enrolled Deed Poll’ situation where the name change is a matter of public record)

Do solicitors dealing with eg statutory declaration name changes (the process is print off a form, take ID, get it signed off for about a fiver within a couple of minutes in my experience) normally have access to the SOR?

Solicitors are not currently tasked with doing anything except looking at the current ID and then witnessing the signature on a stat dec. Whenever I’ve needed a stat dec for something (eg divorce papers!) they’ve stepped out in the foyer for five minutes. I doubt they even have a record of whose signatures they’ve witnessed that day, just a tally up of the £5 fees!

I’m currently just throwing out ideas that would do away with both the current ‘unenrolled deed poll’ and solicitor witnessed ‘stat dec’ but wouldn’t make every single name change public (which moving all name changes to the ‘Enrolled deed poll’ system would) and that would need minimal infrastructural change.
Solicitors are already tasked with similar records searches and are regulated professionals who have privacy obligations so it makes sense to give them the new job of weeding out sex offenders via record searches before signing off paperwork (rather than say, police forces).
It’ll put the costs on the individual but we can find ways to mitigate that for victims of crimes.

Victims of DV will be weaponised as a reason not to do away with unenrolled deed polls, so we need an alternative that will protect them whilst not giving registered sex offenders a loophole.

I started a thread about it, you can write to your MP and ask them to attend the debate;

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4748640-dellas-law-ask-your-mp-to-support-banning-sex-offenders-from-changing-their-name-uk?reply=124141046

Thank you.

The BBC have another report on this issue here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64624921

Thanks for posting. So if a sex offender fails to attend a yearly meeting at the police station, what happens exactly? In theory the 700 (!!) odd who are missing should be facing jail time for failing to turn up, according to the article. But how many resources are allocated to finding them?