Lie detector tests for sex offenders as they go free

SEX offenders will be given compulsory lie detector tests on release from jail in an effort to prevent future attacks.

Those who are found to be at high-risk of carrying out further abuse will be recalled to prison or face a change of their parole conditions.

No10 wants mandatory tests for all high risk sex pests after a successful trial in the Midlands.

Probation officers hooked the offenders up to polygraphs while questioning them over their future movements and intentions.

The study found that the lie detector tests led to offenders being more honest with their probation officers.

They made twice as many disclosures to staff as those who were

‘Rigorously enforced’

quizzed without the polygraphs. Their revelations included admitting to contacting a victim or entering an exclusion zone. Some confessed to fantasies, suggesting they would offend again.

Offenders also reported that the tests helped them to manage their own behaviour better.

The lie detector tests would be on top of other rigorous conditions that sex offenders face once they have served their prison sentences.

These include signing the sex offenders’ register, restrictions on where they live and being banned from entering certain areas or coming into contact with potential victims.

A No10 source said: ‘It’s vital that we protect the public from serious sex offenders.

‘That’s why the conditions after they leave prison need to be both strict and rigorously enforced.

‘The pilot schemes using lie detectors to manage offenders in the community have been a success.

‘So now we’re looking at how it could be rolled out to provide probation officers with more information to manage the most serious sex offenders.’

The tests were carried out between April 2009 and October 2011 in the East and West Midlands probation regions.

There are around 3,000 sex offenders on licence in the community at any time, with more than 750 considered to be the most serious cases.

The compulsory use of lie detectors was challenged under human rights legislation but judges backed the use of polygraphs, saying that they were ‘proportionate’.

Legislation to test polygraphs on sex offenders was introduced by Labour. The Coalition is now planning secondary legislation to use it on the most serious sex offenders in England and Wales.

The risk of paedophiles reoffending or disappearing after their release from jail is a real one. Last year 57 registered sex offenders were charged with a further crime.

And 843 offenders were on the run from the police in the year ending September 1, 2011, nearly 700 of whom had been untraceable for more than a year.