Revealed: How jailed sex offenders joined dating sites

SEX offenders signed up to dating websites while locked up in a secure hospital for mentally ill prisoners, a shocking investigation has found.

An undercover reporter from ITV’s Exposure programme discovered a paedophile patient was able to sign up to a sexually explicit dating website, and it appeared he used a photo of himself on the hospital grounds as his profile picture. A double rapist, who met one of his victims online, accessed dating sites during walks in the grounds of Kneesworth House Hospital in Cambridgeshire.

The rapist admitted visiting the websites on a phone, yet was allowed to keep the device. The

Care Quality Commission (CQC), which regulates secure hospitals, has launched an investigation into Kneesworth, part of the Priory Group which was bought for £1billion by a Dutch private equity firm earlier this year.

The Priory charges taxpayers £185,000 a year to look after each of the mentally ill criminals housed at the former Edwardian stately home, which was rated ‘good’ by the CQC last year.

Undercover journalist Carlo Lavarini began work as a mental health support worker at Kneesworth after just a fortnight of training and with no experience.

The programme also discloses that a child sex offender gave £149 to a member of staff to buy a smart TV which he was later suspected of using to search the web. Another child sex offender used the ward’s secure computer to download software which could enable his PlayStation in his bedroom to be used to surf the net.

A Priory representative said the allegations were misleading and that the well-being of its patients and staff was central to how the hospital was run.