Helen Goodman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Goodman on 2016-09-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what public protection orders or other legal instruments are available to prevent adults without violent or sexual convictions working with children in non-governed extracurricular sports or activities.

Sarah Newton

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is able to bar individuals who pose a risk from working in certain roles with children, regardless of whether they have committed an offence. In addition, individuals working with children are eligible for Enhanced DBS certificates which, alongside criminal records information, disclose any non-conviction information that a chief officer believes to be relevant, for example Sexual Risk Orders.

The Government introduced Sexual Risk Orders (SRO) to protect the public from those who pose a risk of sexual harm but have not been convicted. The key elements of a SRO are that it may be made by the magistrates’ court on application by the police or National Crime Agency where an individual has done an act of a sexual nature and, as a result, is considered to pose a risk of harm to the public in the UK.

An SRO can be applied to any individual who poses a risk of sexual harm in the UK or abroad, even if they have never been convicted. An SRO may prohibit the person from doing anything described in it and any prohibition must be necessary for protecting the public in the UK from sexual harm. The Home Secretary has issued statutory guidance in relation to the orders to the police and the National Crime Agency.