Sex Offenders Win Appeal Over Register
Thousands of criminals will be allowed to appeal for their names and addresses to be removed from the database after a controversial court decision.

Last year the Supreme Court ruled that putting sex offenders on the register for life without a right of appeal was "disproportionate".
Currently anyone sentenced to 30 months or more in prison for a sex offence is automatically put on the register indefinitely.
Their names, addresses, date of birth and national insurance number are recorded, and they must inform police in person of any changes or if they wish to leave the country.A Home Office source told Sky News: "The details of the proposals will be announced in due course and we're looking into it now.

"It's very sensitive so it's important the proper safeguards are put into place."We're looking at the Scottish model, where people appeal first to the police and then to the courts."

The Scottish government has already brought forward plans to allow convicted adults to seek a review after 15 years on the sex offenders register.

Also those placed on the register when under 18 years old can seek a review after eight years.

The Home Office decision comes after a court ruled the lack of appeal was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.Now sex offenders will be able to argue they no longer pose a risk to the public.

The move will infuriate many Euro sceptic Conservative MPs, already angered by the European Court of Human Rights ruling against the UK's blanket ban on prisoner voting.

And victims' groups have described the decision as "appalling".

The case was brought by an 18-year-old man from Wigan who was found guilty of two counts of raping a six-year-old boy and detained for 30 months in October 2005 when he was 11.

The requirement to be monitored prevented him from taking a family holiday abroad and playing rugby league.
A second case involved a man from Newcastle upon Tyne who was jailed for five years in 1996 for indecently assaulting a woman.

He was released in 2005 and is in poor health after suffering a series of heart attacks.
The pair won their case at the Court of Appeal in 2009, but the Home Office appealed and lost in the Supreme Court last year.

At the time of the ruling Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, President of the Supreme Court, said: "It is obvious that there must be some circumstances in which an appropriate tribunal could reliably conclude that the risk of an individual carrying out a further sex offence can be discounted to the extent that continuance of notification requirements is unjustified."
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You can either disagree with the European Convention on Human Rights or agree, there is no picking and choosing. It is for the reason of the idiotic stupidity of some laws that are made by invisible people that answer to no one why I am against the convention. I realise that in some circumstanses there is a need for reform, but to blanket the whole issue is sheer folley. In a You-Gov pole 44% wanted the UK to get out of the Human rights charter, 52% wanted to pull out of Europe altogether. The UK give Europe £6.5 billion pound every year for what i have no idea because we have had damn all back since starting. Although they can still dictate to us how to manage our affairs. Before i hear you say but you just got a loan from the European Bank, i would like to point out that the loan has nothing to do with the European Comunity. I would also like to point out that certain European Countries in the comunity owe the UK billions, in fact enough to cover the loan.

Regards IAN 2411{lillirose}