Paedophile hostel ban criticised

The Home Office ban "exacerbated" a shortfall in places, a report says

A ban on housing paedophiles in bail hostels near schools has undermined attempts to protect the public, a report says.

The ban, affecting 14 of 100 hostels in England and Wales, was introduced in 2006 after a newspaper campaign.

But the inspectorates of constabulary, probation and prisons say it led to a shortage of places for sex offenders, and some were inadequately monitored.

The government said the ban had moved the system "in favour of the victim".

The inspectors said that plans to create new hostels, to meet the needs of the criminal justice system, had already proved impossible because of local opposition.

Shortfall 'exacerbated'

But they said the Home Office - which had responsibility for dealing with housing sex offenders until the Ministry of Justice was created last year - had "exacerbated" a shortfall in hostel places and "reduced the capacity" of the probation service to protect the public.

Inspectors said that in some cases potentially dangerous offenders had been released from prison without proper supervision.

We were told about specific cases where potentially dangerous offenders had been released to live with inadequate supervision Inspectorates' report

"The decision to admit someone to a hostel has always been based on an assessment of risk of harm that included the location of the hostel," said the report.

"However, it is the individual who is risk-assessed and not the premises.

"Given that most hostels have been private homes, it is inevitable that many are located in residential areas and that some are close to schools or nurseries."

The report said at least one hostel had never housed a sex offender because it was "literally next door" to a nursery. Other hostel teams had worked closely with local schools.

'Rebalancing' justice

The report said banning 14 of the 100 available hostels from housing people convicted of sex offences against under-16s had a "profound effect" on the ability of managers to find "appropriate" places for them.

"Offender managers continued to be distracted by this issue," it continued. Public protection teams "were often unwilling to accept referrals of potentially dangerous offenders from out of the area".

"We were told about specific cases where potentially dangerous offenders had been released to live with inadequate supervision, due to restrictions on admissions in a local hostel and refusal of other area's [teams] or hostels to accept them."

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said offenders were "housed in appropriate accommodation after a thorough risk assessment".

She added: "In June 2006 the home secretary excluded child sex offenders from approved premises adjacent to schools and nurseries as part of rebalancing the criminal justice system in favour of the victim and in order to maintain public confidence in the system.

"Areas work together to find places in approved premises where it is imperative that a child sex offender is placed in this type of accommodation.

"Approved premises, where offenders can be properly supervised, remain safer for the public than the alternative, which is to disperse such offenders throughout the local community, making supervision much less effective, more costly and potentially more dangerous."