Team keeping an eye on dangerous people
WHEN somebody is convicted of a sexual offence, experts at Staffordshire Police swing into action to protect the public from further incidents.
Working under the umbrella of the Sexual Offender Management Unit (SOMU), 26 members of staff have the job of deciding who out of those convicted is at risk of reoffending - and constantly evolving their investigative tactics to thwart them.
PC Kate Parker, a SOMU risk assessor who manages registered sex offenders out in the community, said: “Many people do not understand the background and proactive work that goes into the management of registered sex offenders. Not only do we manage their compliance with the register but we also ‘prevent’ and ‘detect’ many more sexual offences from taking place.”
The team’s remit is wide-ranging and they can do everything a regular police officer does, including making arrests and compiling the cases for court appearances.
Convictions and sentencings range from cautions to lengthy jail terms, with offenders being placed on the sex offender register and being made to comply with many requirements by law. Failure to do so means they placed back before the courts in most instances.
SOMU will handle them until their sex offender registration expires, or a sexual prevention order has been put in place by a court to keep them on SOMU’S radar for a longer period of time.
Statistically, 84 per cent of sex offenders do not go on to re-offend, but SOMU’S job is to work out which 16 per cent are the ones that are or planning to - and then to stop them from doing so.
Detective Sergeant James Hargreaves, another of the SOMU team, said: “We visit offenders to assess them and with all the information we gather, we assign them a risk level to the community. That determines how they are managed. This can be determined by how open and honest they are with officers. Do the police have to be intrusive into their lives to uncover lies or are they quite open and forthcoming?”
Kate added: “Once we are assigned a case, the first thing we do is a thorough study on what put them on the sex offender register in the first instance. Was there any previous offending prior to conviction? We have to take every part of a sex offender’s life into account in order to protect and safeguard the community.
“We will also work very closely with probation - some offenders are assigned a probation officer immediately should they not go to prison and we jointly manage them should that be the case. Social Services, housing and schools are also other agencies we work side by side with.” When trying to assess if somebody is still a threat to the public, there are many ways SOMU officers make their judgments.
Kate said: “If the person has previously offended by downloading or viewing images or other offensive and illegal material then our first checks are with all computer equipment and devices.”
“Many will have a SHPO [sexual harm prevention order] with conditions relating to their use. If people breach these orders they are dealt with robustly and placed back before a court where, on many occasions, a further prison sentence is invoked. In addition, we can discover a lot about people’s lives through device checks. Have they any relationships they may have started? We then manage that risk, for example does the new partner or friend have children? Do they know they are communicating with a convicted sex offender? This is where our safeguarding comes in to play.”
James added: “You have to try and work out what reasons, if any, they have to deceive us. Some may just have a new partner and are scared to disclose that they are a registered sex offender, but for others it may be that they have a new partner with children and they want to keep it from us because their aim is to groom the partner. We also check their employment closely - is a particular job appropriate for them given their conviction?
“We know exactly what we are dealing with - we deal with dangerous people. You’ve got to have an ability to build a rapport with someone while also watching them.”
■ If people have suspicions about somebody possibly being a registered sex offender they are asked to contact Staffordshire Police either via its website or social media channels, or by calling 101. In an emergency, always dial 999.