A scheme to allow people to check whether those with access to their children are sex offenders is to be rolled out across Britain.
A year-long pilot scheme in four counties saw one in ten calls to police uncover evidence of a criminal past. Out of 315 applications for information, details of 21 paedophiles were revealed.
Information regarding 11 other individuals who had committed different criminal offences, often violent, was also divulged.
The scheme will go nationwide in March 2011.
British Home Secretary Alan Johnson says the pilot scheme had helped to protect 60 children. He told Sky News: ‘The fact that there have been disclosures in about 32 of those cases and they have been dealt with sensitively encourages us now to spread it much wider.’
Under the Home Office scheme parents, grandparents, or neighbours can ask the police about anyone with access to their children. Details of sex offenders can be released confidentially if officers believe it to be in the child's interests.
There were fears that the project could lead to vigilante attacks on paedophiles and drive offenders underground. Mr Johnson said these fears had not been borne out, and that the majority of requests had been well-intentioned.
He said: ‘All the evidence from the pilots is that we've dealt with that successfully. There haven't been strings of spurious applications, only three from about 580.’
Mr Johnson said fears that the scheme would be an intolerable burden on police forces were groundless. He said: ‘I don't think this is going to put extra pressure on the police. If we protect one child it's worth doing.’
The year-long trial began in September 2008 and involved the police forces of Hampshire, Warwickshire, Cleveland, and Cambridgeshire. Findings showed that the majority of requests came from fathers asking for information on their ex-partner's new boyfriend.
The scheme will be extended to 18 additional forces from next August before being rolled out nationally in March 2011.
