Police have alerted the founder of ‘Predators in Guernsey’, a local mother, to the law on ‘spent convictions’, which effectively wipes criminal records clean after a certain number of years, and warned that it could be an offence to disclose some historical cases.
They have also encouraged anyone with concerns about the disclosure of spent convictions to call the police station so that they can be investigated properly.
The site was set up in November to publicise the names of convicted sex offenders, in some cases going back more than a decade, and to campaign for the introduction of a public register of sex offenders.
Legal concerns saw the police advise the group to stop allowing comments on posts a few weeks ago, though latest posts seem to indicate that this is no longer being followed, and the founder has since posted a message indicating a willingness to remove the details of some historical cases if a ‘good reason’ was put forward.
‘There is legislation in Guernsey around spent convictions. Depending on how long somebody served in prison, or whether they were in prison or not, it can be an offence if you disclose a conviction on a social media site once it is spent after a certain amount of time,’ said detective chief inspector Ian Tanner.
‘The law is slightly different in Guernsey than in the UK, as ours covers more about social media, whereas actually I don’t think the UK quite goes that far.
‘I know my colleagues have given advice to the person who owns that Facebook site.
‘If somebody has concern over some of the content, which they think is incorrect, or around a spent conviction, they should get in contact with us through the police control centre.’
DCI Tanner said that police officers were not actively monitoring the site, which has more than 5,000 followers, and was not aware of any calls to do so. Instead, looking into specific concerns brought to their attention would allow them to ‘ascertain whether there is an offence’ in any of the material posted on the site.
The Guernsey Press put questions to the Police after receiving letters from family members of convicted sex offenders.
The writers of the letters, which are being published today, claim that publicity about historical sex offenders can prevent them and their families from moving on with their lives many years later.
The founder of the Facebook group did not reply to an invitation to comment but posted online that letters had been written about the site.
‘If you are unhappy with someone who was convicted years ago, just message the page and we can take that person down for good reason,’ she said.
‘I can’t stress enough that this page was not created to cause problems or harm to family members of these dirty offenders. This page is purely to show who these men and women are so we can better our community to keep our children and families safer.’
She also defended the work the site was doing and pointed out that it had informed many parents for the first time of convicted paedophiles living nearby.