Peter Chapman was a violent rapist who ignored his sex offender order by returning to the North-East without telling the police. He went on to kidnap, rape and kill Ashleigh Hall. Neil Macfarlane, left, asks if the system for monitoring dangerous sexual predators needs changing to prevent another tragedy.

WHEN Ashleigh Hall’s killer left his registered home in Merseyside last year, police and the Probation Service lost track of him. As a sadistic rapist on the sex offenders’ register, he was expected to keep them up to date on his movements.

In reality, he could move around the country as easily as anyone. When he decided to start a new life away from the glare of the authorities, there was little to stop him.

“If this man had been monitored correctly, that young girl would still be alive today – I have no doubt about that,” says Angie Conroy, policy officer for the victims’ charity Rape Crisis.

“This was a prolific and dangerous sex offender who went off the radar and it doesn’t look like any assertive measures were put in place to track him down and prevent future offending.”

The former chief superintendent of Durham Police Brian Mackenzie, now Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, was instrumental in setting up the current policy. As vice president of the Superintendents’ Association, he lobbied the Government for changes in the law which ultimately led to the introduction of the Sex Offenders Act in 1997.

In light of the Ashleigh Hall case, he says that draconian action needs to be taken against the most serious offenders, such as longer sentences or electronic tagging.

“Clearly the system failed in this case,” he says. “There will always be a risk with people like this, even if given a life or indeterminate sentence. The answer with dangerous people who are assessed as such is to err on the side of potential victim – life should mean life.

“Where there is doubt about a person complying, or a blatant breach of the conditions, I have no doubt that they should be put immediately before the court or tagged with an electronic device.”

Statistics show that the vast majority of offenders abide by the terms of their order. In light of Chapman’s arrest last year, the Probation Service announced that none of the 405 registered sex offenders in the Durham area are unaccounted for. The Ashleigh Hall case appears to be the tragic exception to the rule.

“While clearly some offenders go on the run, we have in this country one of the most successful regimes in the world, with some 90 per cent of offenders complying with the Act,” says Lord Mackenzie.

“A paedophile is like an alcoholic. He cannot be cured, just controlled. That is the purpose of the Act and it has been very successful in preventing re-offending, but no legislation can achieve 100 per cent success.”

In addition to Chapman’s two rape convictions, he was accused of four other serious sex assaults which failed to reach court.

Clare McGlynn, professor of law at Durham University and an expert in rape law, says complaints need to be pursued more vigorously by the police if violent offenders are to be stopped.

“When women come into police stations to report rape they are often not taken seriously,”

she says.

“Ian Huntley, for example, had a number of complaints made against him in the past, but they never went anywhere. He then went on to commit murder.

“If individual complaints were taken more seriously, that is how you deal with someone like Peter Chapman. I don’t know if all complaints about him were followed up as well as they could have been.

“If he had been prosecuted for all those offences he would have been in prison for a much longer period of time. This murder might have been prevented.”

MS CONROY, of Rape Crisis, says most of the charity’s clients do not report complaints to police because they have little faith they will be followed up.

“Ninety per cent of the women who use our services never go anywhere near the criminal justice system, and we have to ask ourselves why. They don’t believe they will get justice, they don’t think they will be believed.

“I was shocked to see that basic levels of sexual violence training are not mandatory in some police forces in the UK. We have had lots of reviews and lots of recommendations from Government, but so far we haven’t had a breakthrough.

There has been no shift in police attitudes towards women in these circumstances.”

Ms Conroy says the legislation in place was effective, but it was not being enforced correctly by frontline police. “When I heard about this case I just despaired,” she said.

“Peter Chapman was clearly a very dangerous man. He was on the register, but it is clear he was not monitored whatsoever. His computer was not monitored, even though that is where most sexual offender activity is going on. We should have known that he was posing online as a teenage boy. We didn’t even know where he lived.

“Obviously, the system is not effective enough. That young girl lost her life and there is no reason for it. The legislation is in place, but it is useless if it is not being adhered to.”