Colleague on the sex offenders register

[hadtochangeforthis]

First time poster, long time lurker.
Trying to keep this relatively anonymous as it is not myself but a friend who is in this situation and it just got me thinking.

Friend's colleague is on the sex offenders register for life. Served custodial sentence, involved the worst sort of contact with a child (absolutely deplorable) with mountains of evidence against them. It made nationwide news at the time. Since their release, there are restrictions on their movement (must let police know) and no contact with children. The partner of this person stuck by them and has children with them. They moved to a new area, new employment but breached the conditions many times. This includes having children for playdates at their house, involved in local kids clubs and travelling without informing the authorities. It seems this person has not learnt any lessons.
It has all come out now as schools, clubs and parents found out and this person is now back in court but it got me thinking about what an employer's responsibilities are in this situation?

The job does not involve contact with children but understandably the office and its staff are feeling very vulnerable. Manager would have heard the colleague discuss kids clubs etc. and travelling with said clubs on trips. Another colleague also reported to the manager this person for sending unwanted messages but the manager just told them to ignore it. Surely it is a companies responsibility to do more?

It's tricky because as an employer (or potential employer) you do not have the right to dbs check staff unless they are in an occupation that has contact with children or vulnerable adults. As deplorable as you find their past, from an employers point of view it's only their ability to do the job that matters. I'm not sure if the law should be changed, but if someone has served their sentence then they need to be able to work.

Thanks for the info, I wasn't aware about not being able to dbs check unless you worked with vulnerable people. A few of their colleagues are angry they were put in vulnerable position (including someone who has now bravely come forward as a victim of a historical sex attack years ago) as they were on trips/car journeys with just this person but as you say it's tricky.

I am all favour of peoples rehabilitation so the lack of remorse or lessons learnt from their sentence is shocking (to me anyway) but they still need to support their family (their child is going to suffer as the other parent stands by the accused). It turns our the management were aware of the past due to name and location changes required but that seems to have just come out.

I was just quite concerned that the manager was advising staff to just ignore unwanted texts considering the past. There is a whole heap of stuff making this feel uneasy but in hand hopefully by the police now. Person seems to still be employed but currently awaiting sentencing.
Thanks for the info

As an aside, what kind of woman has children with a child sex offender? Honestly, what goes through these peoples' minds?

I think there are some criminal behaviours that you can’t ever be rehabilitated from.

Sexual offences and child sexual offences being two such examples.

I agree if you served prison time for something like drug offences or burglary, you could feasibly be rehabilitated.

But I believe once a sex offender always a sex offender.

Thanks all. I do agree as there has been no remorse considering they have broken all restrictions. What they did is sickening and since it has come out a lot of people in the village are sickened as this person has been in their house with their kids or they've let their kids go their for playdates etc. And yes, I think their partner is just as bad as not only did they somehow stay with them but they put their own and other people's children at risk. If anything their partner facilitated the breaching of these restrictions.