for Sarah Campaign

It is every parent's right to have controlled access to information about individuals in their neighbourhood, including convicted child sex offenders who may pose a risk to their child.

In appropriate cases this access should be also given to responsible members of the public who have a responsibility for the care of children.

There must be severe penalties for any person who abuses access to this information.

Parents should be able to access a local record of all organisations to determine if their employees or volunteers are subject to the child access vetting procedures.

Government should establish a task force to review existing programmes to promote child safety for children and parents.

When passing sentence, courts should have the power to prevent offenders contacting or living near their victims.

The orders would be made on the basis of representations made by the victim.

Release licence conditions should include restrictions on contact with victims.

Every child victim of sexual abuse should as of right receive appropriate support, counselling and therapy.

The existing police vetting arrangements for people intending to work with children should be extended to cover all voluntary organisations.

The Government should make funds available to allow voluntary organisations to apply for the vetting information free of charge.

The existing Sex Offenders Register should be amended to:

Require registration to be made within 72 hours of release from custody.
Require registration to be made in person at designated police stations.
The offender should be required to have his or her photograph taken for identification purposes at the time of registration and at any other reasonable time when his or her appearance has changed.
The re-registration of offenders should take place at pre-determined intervals.
The penalty for failing to comply with the register should be increased from six months' to five years' imprisonment.
Offenders should be required to notify foreign travel.
Sex Offender Orders should be extended to enable high-risk offenders who fall outside the current sex offender registration requirement to be included in the register.
Sex Offender Orders should be revised to enable the police to make greater use of them as a pro-active tool.
It is every victim's right to understand the sentence imposed by the court. Victims have a right to know what period in custody the offender will actually serve.
Sex offenders should be subject to a risk-assessment process at the time of their sentence by the court and indeterminate sentences be imposed in appropriate cases.
Where an offender is assessed as suffering from severe personality disorder, and as a consequence poses a significant threat to children, he or she should be detained in secure accommodation.

To date, as a direct response to the campaign, the Government has agreed to implement many of these proposals.

However, the politicians are still resisting to the heart of Sarah's Law, that is parents' right to controlled information about child sex offenders in their neighbourhood.

They reveal the true depth of depravity that exists so close to home. It is why we must know who are the paedophiles among us:

There are officially more than 110,000 convicted paedophiles in England and Wales, around seven in every 1,000 men aged over 20. But experts believe the true figure is far higher because so few cases reach the courts. This monstrosity knows no class barriers - 35 per cent of those brought before the courts are from a professional background.
Detective Chief Inspector Bob McLachlan, head of Scotland Yard's paedophile unit, reveals that 64 per cent of paedophiles re-offend four or more years after their first conviction.
An independent study on 500 paedophiles found that they had each molested on average 380 children. Government figures also show that 30 per cent of offenders have had at least 10 child victims. Experts believe the average paedophile would have abused 200 children before ever being prosecuted.
Between five and nine children are abducted and killed each year. The grief and despair touches every area of the country.
There are 4,000 men aged 20-25 with paedophile convictions and 6,000 aged 26-29. 21,000 are in their 30s and 79,000 over 40. Many paedophiles fall into a cycle of offending which becomes increasingly serious and frequent.
The number of convictions for gross indecency with a child doubled between 1985 and 1995, from 633 to 1,287.
Adolescents make up one third of all child sex crime. This means there are around 35,000 teenagers in Britain who have committed a sexual offence against a child. Because abuse is a persistent crime, many of these youngsters will turn into adult abusers.
According to a Home Office survey around one in 60 men born in 1953 had a conviction for some type of sexual offence by the time they were 40.
There are 12,000 people on the Sex Offenders Register which came into force in 1997 and includes all sexual crime. More than 2,200 men cautioned for sex offences each year are required to sign on to it for five years. But the law does not require people convicted before 1997 to register on it.
More than 20,000 child victims of a sex-related crime rang the Childline and NSPCC helplines last year. But two thirds of children will never report a sex attack.