Hard cases make bad law

The old legal saw holds just as true today as it ever did. So It concerns me to hear on Radio 4 this morning that "Sara's Law" is to be piloted in four areas of England. My concerns cover a number of different considerations.

Having been on the receiving end of a number of Home Office 'pilots' over the years, I have detected a disturbing trend; unless they prove unexpectedly expensive, eventually they always get rolled out nationally, whatever their merits or demerits. I'm worried that this is simply a way of softening up opposition by introducing the law on a creeping basis.

I'm reminded of the appalling scenes in the aftermath of the Sara Payne trial, where incensed parents marched through local estates protesting against the rumoured presence there of a paedophile (or in one celebrated instance, a paediatrician), armed with inflammatory banners and placards, chanting slogans - and dragging their young children along with them. The thought of such episodes being repeated around the country fills me with horror.

I also give weight to the belief of the Probation Service, Barnado's and the NSPCC that such a law would actually increase the danger to children rather than protect them. Why? Because the greatest degree of protection for children comes from the authorities knowing the exact whereabouts of a sex offender, and monitoring and supervising that offender very closely. The risk is that a Sara's law would encourage such people to abscond and go underground, and so unmonitored to represent a far greater danger. At the pilot stage, the temptation would be to move out of the pilot area. So the risk is not minimised; it is simply exported to another community.

The setting of a precedent also disturbs me. If the local community is entitled to know that there is a paedophile living in their midst, why not a murderer released on licence? Or a rapist? A sneak thief who preys on the elderly? Anyone convicted of anything, indeed? And then what happens to the goverment's much vaunted and much to be applauded emphasis on the need for the criminal justice system to rehabilitate offenders?

Finally - at least at the moment - what about mistaken identity? Unless details of the name, address, and photograph of the offender are made freely available, the danger exists that stereotyping will lead to perfectly innocent but mildly eccentric 'loners' being identified by the vigilante element as 'him', and suffering accordingly.

And on what basis is a Sara's law felt to be necessary? The actual level of offences against children by paedophile offenders outside the family is, I believe, no higher than it was during my own childhood sixty-odd years ago; what has changed is the perceived level, fuelled by ongoing media interest. I fear such a law will only exacerbate the paranoia.