Judge urges ‘review mechansim’ of children being labelled sexual offenders

A High Court judge has called for a new “review mechanism” to be set up for individuals whose job prospects and lives are blighted after being labelled sexual offenders as children.

The judge urged action as he considered the “troubling case” of G, who cannot be identified. He received two reprimands as a 13-year-old after taking part in “sexual experimentation” with two other boys.

Tim Owen QC, representing G, who is now over 18, told the court the young man had been left with “a mark of Cain” as the reprimands were showing up in criminal record checks when he applied for jobs.

The QC argued that the sex incidents “should be seen as part of the process of growing up, and nothing more sinister than that”.

Mr Justice Blake, sitting in London, ruled there had been interference with G’s “right to private life” under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights because he had no means of seeking to persuade the authorities that disclosure of the reprimands is no longer relevant or necessary.

Calling for a review mechanism, the judge said: “Disclosure of a child’s reprimand has a deleterious effect on subsequent social life and there are strong pointers that this should only take place where strictly necessary and proportionate.”

The judge said G obtained a post with an employment agency at the library of a local college and, because the work involved some contact with children, he was asked to undergo a criminal records check.

In February 2012, he received a letter from the Criminal Records Bureau that two reprimands at the age of 13 for sexual activity with other boys reported by Surrey police were to be disclosed to potential employers.

The judge said G was aged between 11 and his 13th birthday during the period of activity between March 2005 and July 2006. The two other boys were aged between eight and 10 years. The activity began when G instigated “a game of dares” in his garden shed.

A Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor analysed what had occurred as “sexual experimentation… not something sinister and serious, just misguided”.

The prosecutor said he could see no benefit in criminalising G’s conduct and, given his age, a reprimand was “appropriate”.

The judge dismissed G’s challenge against the Chief Constable of Surrey over the legality of the decision to issue the reprimand.

But the judge ruled G was entitled to a declaration that there had an interference with his Article 8 rights.

The declaration was against the Home Secretary, who has responsibility for allowing exemptions from disclosure under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1997, and the Justice Secretary, who is in charge of the statutory disclosure regime under the Police Act 1997.

The judge said that by 2012 it had been decided such reprimands for children would remain on the Police National Computer indefinitely – “or until G was 100 years old”.

The judge ruled: “It is necessary to temper the long arm of the criminal law with other measures designed to ensure children do not become stigmatised as criminals for engaging in activity that might be seen as an ordinary part of the process of growing up.”

The judge said the CPS prosecutor who analysed G’s case did not consider it was in the public interest to give G a record and did not intend to give him one “and thereby damage his welfare and prospects of rehabilitation”.

Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2016, All Rights Reserved.