Sex crimes: can this early warning system work?

Now it has emerged that the North-East is one of three areas where known sex offenders have been given lie detector tests to see if they still pose a danger to children. Barry Nelson looks at whether this new approach might work.

KEEPING tabs on known paedophiles is one of the most difficult issues for the authorities. While sex offenders' details are known to the police and probation service and regular checks are made, there is no way of detecting what might be going on inside their heads after they have been released into the community.

An early warning system that would alert the authorities to a paedophile who is about to start re-offending would be the answer to the prayers of probation workers and the police. Now Professor Don Grubin of Newcastle University, an expert on sex crime, has revealed that he is working on just such a system - and he believes it has already proved its worth.

Prof Grubin, an American who has lived in the UK for 25 years, is sure that regular lie detector tests using an electronic polygraph, which are in widespread use in the United States, could help to alert the authorities when a paedophile is poised to strike again.

A scheme which used lie detectors to monitor sex offenders in the Southern state of Arkansas successfully cut re-offending rates, he says.

In the past the tabloids have run controversial campaigns to "out" paedophiles in the name of protecting children who may live on the same housing estate as an offender. This led to marches in towns like Portsmouth, in Hampshire, and attacks on completely innocent people suspected of being sex offenders.

But most people would probably agree that there is still a very persuasive argument for keeping such details secret - the prospect of an offender going underground and being out of contact with police and probation officers.

So the idea of making paedophiles take regular lie detector tests as a form of early warning system has now surfaced as a serious proposal to control sex offenders in the community.

The polygraph trial, which involved tests on sex offenders in Northumberland, Surrey and the West Midlands last year, was supervised by Prof Grubin on behalf of the National Probation Service. They found that a third of the sex offenders given polygraph tests by two American specialists had had unsupervised contact with children.

Prof Grubin, who is based at Newcastle University's Sexual Behaviour Unit, says three of the 30 men tested needed "significant action" to prevent them re-offending.

Prof Grubin is so encouraged by the results of the tests - which may have prevented paedophile attacks on unsuspecting North-East children - that he is in talks with the Home Office about running a much larger trial, this time involving up to 200 offenders. This would involve setting up a two-year scheme in three probation areas and comparing the findings with three areas where polygraphs are not used.

The tests take between 30 minutes and an hour with carefully structured questioning before, during, and after the polygraph is used. "The real skill is in the interviewing," says Prof Grubin.

This is not the first time that the Newcastle-based expert has been in the news because of his innovative work. Earlier this year it was revealed that Prof Grubin has been given permission by the Home Office to carry out tests to see whether the tranquillising "happy pill", Prozac, could be used to reduce the abnormal sex drives of convicted offenders. A test involving 50 imprisoned sex offenders, who have all volunteered to take high doses of Prozac, is due to start shortly.

Prof Grubin is convinced the drug will prove effective. "It is widely and successfully used for this purpose in the US and I have used it to good effect in my own practice. It seems to work particularly well with men who repeatedly expose themselves," he says.

During last year's lie detector trial the offenders were each asked questions about their past offending, current behaviour and fantasies.

Crucially, they were asked if they had been in contact with children or whether they were looking for new victims.

''Everyone disclosed information relevant to their rehabilitation," says Prof Grubin. ''About a third revealed unsupervised contact with children and with three of them, we believe, if intervention had not been taken, they would have re-offended. The men themselves said as much afterwards."

The men told polygraph operators that they had deliberately gone to areas where they might meet children. "They were beginning to go in search of victims. They hadn't offended yet, but had no doubt in three of these cases they would have done," says the professor.

In one of the three cases where the test led to immediate action the subject was put back in a hostel, child protection proceedings were started against another and the third had his supervision increased.

While there is scepticism about the reliability of polygraph tests in the UK, Prof Grubin is convinced they can play a useful role. He says experience in America suggests that it is far harder to cheat lie detectors than many people thought. "Of course, anyone can beat the polygraph on an occasion, but around 90 per cent of the time people can't and that is the sort of level we need."

Most people's ideas of lie detectors come from American detective movies where the police are using it in an investigation, says the professor. "We are not talking about that at all, we are not talking about using it in court," he adds.

Eithne Wallis, a spokeswoman for the National Probation Service says the polygraphs could play a future role in monitoring sex offenders, if further tests prove that they are reliable. The Home Office is waiting for the results of the polygraph trial.

Polygraph examiner Sandy Gray, who comes from Arizona, says paedophiles are usually very skilled at being manipulative but says polygraph tests are "far better than simply accepting and taking their word for what they are doing".

But Roger Stoodley, the senior detective who led the investigation into the paedophile network which included the notorious child killer Sidney Cooke, remains sceptical about the value of lie detectors. He says sex offenders are practised liars and would be able to fool the most sophisticated equipment.

Paul Cavadino, chief executive of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO), says the issue of reliability is the key one. ''If it is shown there is a high level of reliability, it would be perfectly reasonable to use polygraphs as part of the supervision and monitoring of sex offenders,'' he says.

Roger Bingham, a spokesman for civil rights group Liberty, agrees: ''It seems reasonable to use polygraphs if they are proved reliable, but they should not become a substitute for other safeguards used to monitor such offenders.''

But as feelings run high in the wake of the Soham murders, as people cast their minds back to cases where men who have been recognised as a known danger to children were left to roam free in communities, and as residents of a housing estate in Dorset which has 17 sex offenders in the area yesterday angrily petitioned for their names to be made public, any early warning system which could stop paedophiles in their evil tracks merits serious consideration.