'Sex offenders are not all monsters'

IT is only on the way up the stairs that I resolve the dilemma that has been lingering at the back of my mind ever since this interview was arranged - whether to shake the hand of a sex offender. As I'm shown into the conference room in the Durham Probation Service headquarters, on the outskirts of Durham city, the man at one end of the large table rises to greet me and I hold out my hand.

He looks to be in his late 40s, of about average height and thin, but there the description will have to stop. The probation service is understandably twitchy that too much detail will enable his victim to identify him as her abuser, revisiting her trauma. I know his name, but for this article I'll call him Alan.

Alan has agreed to be interviewed to talk about a treatment programme which aims to ensure people like him do not reoffend once they come out of prison. He says he also wants the public to understand that not all sex offenders are monsters and they deserve a second chance.

And therein lies my dilemma. Whatever we think of criminals, we reserve our greatest distaste for those whose offences involve sex with children. Shaking the hand of just about any other offender would not be an issue, but it seems to be an instinctive reaction to recoil from someone such as Alan. If the gesture has any significance for him, he doesn't show it, but Alan knows that many people feel revulsion for sex offenders.

His crime was to have sex with a teenage girl, an under 16-year-old. He admits that at the time he saw it as an affair, and only through the treatment programme has he come to see it as an abusive relationship. He served a prison term and will be on the sex offenders' register for life.

"If she had been a woman I would not have been put in prison," he says, before hastily adding: "That is not excusing what I have done, I deserved to go to prison. I'm going to be penalised for the rest of my life now - I don't mean that to come across as feeling sorry for myself."

In common with many sex offenders, his prison experiences were an ordeal, one he says he "will never get over". Even segregated from the other prisoners, there was the constant danger of getting your face slashed and of having kitchen staff urinate in your food. But, although he was threatened, he largely kept his head down and remained out of trouble.

Even among sex offenders it seems there is a pecking order, with rapists at the top of the tree, and child abusers - "kiddie fiddlers" - at the bottom. Alan's crime seems to have put him in the middle.

He was forced to take part in a 12-month Sex Offenders Treatment Programme, and it was through this that the enormity of what he had done was finally brought home, principally, it seems, through taking part in role plays, with each offender taking the part of their victim.

"You go right through your offence and then you react to your offence as the victim and you have got to tell how you feel. I tried to be as honest as I possibly could - it was horrendous.

"It took me about a week because I was so upset, breaking down doing it. You don't really realise what you put people through. At the time I had thought it was just a fling, but all that changed since I did the programme. Young children have got to be protected. You are the grown up, you have the responsibility not to take advantage."

The course also involves writing down risk factors - elements which could precipitate a repeat offence. Alan says he has hundreds of these, the main one being in the company of teenage girls. As a result, he keeps away from them. He keeps this list in his house, and looks at it occasionally to refresh himself.

Every two months, Alan is visited by police and probation officers from the Public Protection Unit, the operational arm of the County Durham and Darlington Public Protection Strategy. The unit was the first of its kind when it was launched in January 2000, and its members carry out detailed risk assessments of all dangerous criminals, sex offenders and others who pose a serious risk to the community.

Almost 350 offenders have gone through the unit, and only five have gone on to reoffend, just 1.4 per cent. The national average for reoffending in this category of criminals is 16-17 per cent. The unit is involved with prisoners at least three months before they are released from prison, drawing up plans covering housing and employment prospects.

ALAN places a lot of store on their ability to pick up on any likelihood of reoffending. Several times he says that you can't hide anything from these people, they will know if there is a strong prospect of him abusing another girl. While he is clearly anxious to remain out of trouble himself - and says he is "90 per cent sure" he would not do it again, he seems almost to rely on these home visits as an early warning system.

"You are at your biggest risk when you think there is nothing wrong. What you have got to do is think 'I'm always at risk'. As long as you remember that, I think you can't go far wrong," he says.

"I'm quite satisfied that these people have the capabilities of realising if I'm going to reoffend. They deal with people like this all the time. They're specially trained and they know if I'm slipping."

He believes anyone who does reoffend should be locked up for life, but for people like him, who have learned from their crime, there should be a second chance.

"I'm in favour of everybody having a fair crack of the whip. You make your mistake, so you pay for it, but no other offenders pay for it for the rest of their lives like sex offenders do. We're monitored till the day we die," he says.

He insists this is not self-pity, and it is right for society to have a special regard for protecting its children, but some of the restrictions are clearly irksome. Alan can't stay at a friend's house or go on holiday without informing the police, and he can't be in a house with children.

But his greatest anxiety is the fear that his neighbours will find out he is a sex offender, and he, and his wife, will be at risk from vigilante attacks. This has happened once before, when a mob gathered outside his home and started banging on the door. The police arrived before it turned really nasty, and Alan and his wife were swiftly rehomed, but the memory lives with him.

"When you come out you are so paranoid that everybody is going to get you. You are living in constant fear, and you know that as soon as anybody finds out this is going to happen again."

Naturally, he opposes any moves to "name and shame" paedophiles, saying it would force people like him to disappear. Whenever the subject is raised, he says "it is like somebody has torn your insides out. It is really petrifying." The fine distinctions between types of sex offender are unlikely to mean much to an angry mob.

A better option, he says, is to treat sex offenders, and allow them to try and get back into society, although he admits there are some who cannot be treated and should be locked up for life.

Alan has not worked since he was released from prison, but says he is re-adjusting to being a responsible member of society. More importantly, he says taking part in the treatment programme has changed him as a person.

"The biggest thing is it gives you an idea of what the victims feel like. When I first went to prison I didn't want to go on it, but I feel it has made me a better person. I try not to look at the person I was before.

"It is not easy to face when you have done something like that. You come in and look in the mirror and think 'You bastard'. All I can say is at least I realise what I have done is wrong. I will always realise that for the rest of my life."