It seemed like a good idea at the time: paedophiles should, in certain circumstances, be prevented from travelling abroad. Such bans would play a valuable role in restricting the peculiar depravity that is child sex tourism. Convicted sex offenders would have to notify police if they intended to travel. If police suspected that an individual posed a threat to under-age children while abroad, officials could apply for a court ban. A child on the other side of the world might thus be spared.
Unfortunately, good intentions are not enough when it comes to legislating. The amendment to the Sex Offenders Bill in 2003 which made provision for the ban has proved spectacularly ineffective. The Times can find evidence of only three such bans being imposed. Even the usefulness of those introduced is questionable. The orders must specify which countries the sex offender is banned from. If, for instance, those are Thailand and Cambodia, the individual can go instead to other destinations, nearer to home, that are listed in online brochures for sex tourists. A ban can be imposed only if the individual intends to travel for more than three days, effectively ignoring the growth of “weekend” destinations. And each prohibition lasts only six months.
Apart from such details, the law is cumbersome. Police need a weight of evidence before applying for a ban. The court process can drag on beyond the offender’s departure date. The various branches of law enforcement do not share information as well as they should. It is little wonder that organisations which monitor, as best they can, the movement of British sex offenders can list destinations around the world where individuals have been recently, in all probability, reoffending.
There are two telling points to the genesis of the travel bans. First, they followed the publicity surrounding conviction for crimes against under-age children of Gary Glitter, the former rock star, who moved to the Far East. Secondly, the time given over to public consultation of the new law lasted all of two weeks. There is nothing intrinsically wrong in legislating on burning issues. The very fact of their being on front pages often highlights a legal loophole. But the three words Dangerous Dogs Act — the rushed and botched response to an apparent outbreak of child-hungry rottweilers in 1991 — are testament to the dangers of rushed legislation. Its lessons in clumsiness have still not been learnt.
The Home Office has been inun- dated with new legislation over the past nine years. Most of it has been well intentioned. But the overall effect has often confused and paralysed the machinery needed to make such laws work. Brave ministers should be more prepared to admit that not every ill can be erased with a Commons vote. If the Government wants travel bans on paedophiles to be effective, it must make them easier for police to enforce, much as the seizing of passports from more than 3,000 English football hooligans has helped to contribute to a relatively trouble-free World Cup. Badly worded laws do no good.