7.5 Known Offenders and Others who may Pose a Risk to Children

1. Introduction

This section provides procedures in relation to the response required to individuals who are known or suspected to have caused significant harm to children (a person under the age of 18).

A ‘Person Posing a Risk to Children’ includes people who are under 18 but excludes younger children displaying non-exploitative sexual exploration. Where this is undetermined or unclear these procedures should be followed. When this procedure is used in relation to a person under 18 posing a risk, the Children who Harm other Children chapter should be considered.

Offending history is an important factor in such assessments, but it is not the only one.

Practitioners need always to exercise professional judgement and remember that there are also other types of offences where a child may be the intended victim but where the primary offence is not a child specific offence e.g. telecommunications offences, harassment etc.

Indicators of people who may pose a risk to children include:

• those found guilty of an offence under schedule 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933;
• individuals known to have been cautioned / warned / reprimanded in relation to an offence against children;
• individuals against whom there is a previous finding in civil proceedings for example, Sexual Harm Prevention Orders or care proceedings;
• those about whom there has been a previous S 47 enquiry which came to the conclusion that there had been abuse;
• an individual who has admitted past abuse of a child;
• others whose past or present behaviour gives rise to a reason to suspect that a child may be at risk of significant harm for example, a history of domestic violence and other serious assaults;
• reports of low level allegations or those with inconclusive findings;
• offenders against adults who are notified to the local authority, because the prison or probation services are concerned about the possible risk to children;
• offenders who come to the attention of the MAPPA;
• for risk factors see Recognition of Abuse for Referral to Children’s Social Care, Children who Harm other Children and Children who present with Harmful Sexual Behaviours chapters.

2. Prison Service Child Safeguarding Enquiries and Identification of Persons Posing a Risk to Children

2.1 Child safeguarding enquiries

The Prison Service will make a child safeguarding enquiry with children’s social care for all newly sentenced prisoners. The child safeguarding enquiry must inform the assessment of whether the prisoner is a Person Posing a Risk to Children and any decision to implement public protection controls and restrictions in prison.  The HMPPS Child Safeguarding Policy Framework provides more information on making a child safeguarding enquiry.

When a child safeguarding enquiry is received from a prison, children’s social care should:

• review the information provided by the Prison Service and record it as required;
• respond to the child safeguarding enquiry and share with the Prison Service any concerns about the prisoner, including whether there are any concerns about them having any contact with a child;
• contribute to the prisons’ child contact risk assessment where a child is known to children’s social care, or has previously been known, by providing a report on the child’s best interests and verifying the child’s identity. Where the child is not known to children’s social care, they should still provide a view on child contact and should advise the prison to complete a child safeguarding referral if one is required.

2.2 Identification of Persons Posing a Risk to Children

The Prison Service will identify prisoners who present an ongoing risk to children from within custody. Guidance:  Prison Public Protection Policy Framework provides detailed guidance of the process and assessment and includes links to the relevant forms and templates.

Their risk status must be reviewed at least every three years, or earlier if there is reason to believe that circumstances have changed.

Where a prisoner is assessed as being a person posing a risk to children (PPRC), within three working days the Prison Service should notify the prisoner and Children’s Services in:

• the prisoner’s home area;
• the child’s home area, where there is an identified child at risk and their home area is different to the prisoner’s; and
• the prisoner’s home area, and planned release area if this is different

about key prisoner sentence information and release dates.

2.3 Prisoners’ contact with children

The Prison Service will decide on the level of contact, if any, they will allow between a prisoner and a child based on a child contact risk assessment. A prisoner’s contact with a child will be prohibited or restricted where necessary.

The risk assessment should be multi-agency risk (coordinated by the Prison Service) and should include gathering information from the following agencies to inform an assessment of risk and what is in the best interests of the child:

• Police;
• Children’s Services;
• Community Offender Manager (if allocated) / YJS case manager;
• NSPCC (where applicable).

The Prison Service can authorise specific contact arrangements for each child contact application; this could be all types of contact (telephone calls, written correspondence, social video calls and visits) or a specified selection of the different types of contact as deemed appropriate in each case. Each assessment is specific to a particular child and cannot be used to determine contact arrangements with other children.

Prisoners must be informed of the decision within one working day and can appeal against a contact decision.

The Prison Service must review all child contact decisions at least every three years or earlier if there is reason to believe that circumstances have changed, where there has been a change in risk or following additional information, for example from Children’s Services.  Reviews must be based on updated information from all agencies involved in the original multi-agency risk assessment.

Prison staff facilitating visits and social video calls are required to:

• confirm the identity (in comparison to the approved images provided) of any children attending a social visit at a prison or participating in secure social video calling with a prisoner subject to child contact arrangements prior to the social visit taking place or the prisoner joining the social video call;
• not allow the social visit to go ahead if they are not confident that the child attending the social visit is the child with whom the social visit is allowed; and
• suspend the social video call if they are not confident that the child on screen is the child with whom the video calling is allowed or booked for.

Where a social visit or social video call has not gone ahead because the staff member could not confidently identify the child, the Prison Service should review the prisoner’s child contact arrangements before any further social visits or video calls take place.

If any member of prison staff involved with social visits or social video calls has an immediate concern for the safety or welfare of a child, they must notify the prison’s safeguarding lead, duty governor, and probation service OMU managers.

PSI 16/2011 Providing Visits and Services to Visitors provides information for prisons regarding safeguarding of children during social visits. This includes guidance for staff working in the visits department on appropriate seating arrangements, observing children’s appearance and interactions with the prisoner and reporting any signs of neglect, abuse or distress using the security incident reporting process.

2.4 Prisoners’ access to personal photographs of children

Governors are required to restrict prisoners’ access to personal photographs of children where:

• prisoners are assessed as presenting a risk of sexual harm to children; and
• there is an identified risk to a specific child or children; or
• having the photograph is linked to offending behaviour, and would undermine rehabilitation and risk management work, and potentially increase a prisoner’s risk to children generally.

The Prison Service must approve access to personal photographs of children for all prisoners identified as PPRCs and who present a risk of sexual offending.

Prisoners can appeal against the decision.

Where prisoners meeting these criteria are found in possession of, or are sent via the post, personal photographs of children, the Prison Service must:

• carry out a risk assessment which involves confirming the child’s identity, primary carer consent, and consideration of the potential risk to the child before they authorise a prisoner to have a photograph; and
• notify the relevant local authority Children’s Services Department if the risk assessment raises concerns about the conditioning or coercion of the primary carer by the prisoner or concerns about the capacity of the parent / carer and should consider withholding the photograph in these circumstances.

Governors can restrict any other prisoners having access to photographs of children, where there is evidence they will share photographs with others who should not have them.

Guidance:  Prison Public Protection Policy Framework provides further guidance on the process and risk assessment for approving personal photographs of children.

3. Probation Service

The Probation Service will:

• share information with children’s social care about supervised individuals who have contact with children or who pose a known risk to children;
• request information by making child safeguarding enquiries.

Information exchange between probation and children’s social care help both agencies develop a better understanding of the children and families they work with and ensures risk assessments are accurate and well informed.

Under the UKGDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 sharing an offender’s personal information must be lawful and fair and must comply with Part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018 and in particular the data protection principles.

See also Information Sharing chapter.

Sharing of information for the purposes of law enforcement and keeping children and young people safe meets one of the requirements for lawful processing under the Data Protection Act 2018, as the data sharing is authorised by law (under section 325(3) and (4) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003) (or section 14 of the Offender Management Act 2007). It is therefore not necessary for Prison and Probation Service staff to obtain consent from the offender under the Data Protection Act 2018.

For information exchange to be effective, children’s social care should:

• explore arrangements with their local Probation Delivery Unit who have resources to support the timely provision of information in response to child safeguarding enquiries, including same day responses, where delay may negatively impact on a child. This may involve sharing information relating to a child, family, or offender who children’s social care may currently or historically know;
• reflect the voice of the child in information shared with the Probation Service, where appropriate;
• be prepared to offer the Probation Service a view on decisions in the child’s best interest.

4. Children’s Social Care Response

4.1 Enquiries

On notification or discovery of a person identified as presenting a risk, or potential risk, to children, children’s social care must treat this information as a child protection referral.

A section 47 enquiry must be instigated if the offender / person who poses a threat, is living in a household with children, has contact with children or poses a risk to children in the area.

Checks (including with the prison service that may hold important information) must be undertaken to establish:

• any children believed to have been abused by the individual in the past;
• other children who are believed to have been in contact with the individual in the past and may therefore have been at risk;
• children with whom the individual is currently in contact in a family or work / voluntary setting;
• children (or groups of children) with whom the individual may seek contact, such as children attending a school located near the home of an offender known to target such children;
• for young people where there are concerns they are harming other children see Response to Referrals, Children who Harm Other Children chapter.

All assessments of risk must consider the:

• needs of the children affected;
• level and pattern of abusing or offending behaviour, including behaviour thought to have occurred, but which has not led to a criminal conviction;
• level of protection which is likely to be provided by other significant adults;
• ability of the young people to protect themselves.

A child protection conference must be convened if the threshold criteria are met and if any child(ren) require continuing protection, therapeutic intervention or family support services.

4.2 Risk assessment

Prior to any decision by children’s social care to disclose information, a risk assessment must be undertaken, in order to establish what risks the alleged offender or suspected offender poses to children in the prevailing circumstances and the risks associated with disclosure. The welfare and safety of children is the paramount consideration.

The generic term ‘adult or young person identified as posing a risk’ is used but clearly an assessment of risk must be based both on the actual offences committed and on other soft information that may be available.

The actual offence(s) for a convicted offender may not place the person in a high risk category in terms of likelihood of future offending or degree of risk posed to children. Staff must be alert to the potential for future risk and to the fact that an offending history gives only partial information and is based on what an adult has been successfully prosecuted for rather than on the full extent of past activity.

Adults or young people who pose a risk may have contact with children both within and external to the family systems where they live. Seeking information on the level of contact with children generally must be an overt part of working with such an adult or young people and written agreements must be put in place on the level and type of contact allowed. All professionals working with the family must be aware that such an agreement exists and its content.  Any evidence that suggests a breach of this agreement must be taken seriously and seen as information about a potential increase in risk. This information will come from both the adult or young people him/herself, from partners and from the network. As far as possible information that is given must be checked with independent sources and the need to do this must be made explicit to the adult or young people who poses a risk and to his/her partner or other relevant family member. In order to gain information about levels of risk posed, sufficient information must be shared with partners or family members and with the network so that informed assessments of risk can be reached by other adults in the network.

A number of known and suspected offenders will be subject to assessment already, with the possibility of treatment follow up. This is an early opportunity to identify the network and seek interagency agreement as to who might need to be informed of the potential risk and how this might be done.

Some adults or young people who pose a risk may deliberately target women with children or seek to have their own biological children as a means of gaining access to a wider circle of children. Some women e.g. those with a learning difficulty may be particularly vulnerable. Thus as part of child protection plans drawn up to protect children who live in the household of such an adult or young person, active consideration must be given to other children who come into contact via friendship, baby sitting etc.  This must include friendships etc with the partner or family membe

The role of the partner in protecting both children in the household and that wider group of children who have contact is crucial and must form part of the risk assessment of the couple. This expectation of the partner acting as a protective adult must be explicitly acknowledged by all parties and by the partner him/herself. Staff should remember that this does not offer a complete guarantee that a partner will act in a protective way as the adult who poses a risk is likely to exert a powerful influence on their partner’s reasoning and judgement in relation to what is perceived as risky.

Assessment of risk must be a dynamic process that is ongoing. For example do children in the household or the system become more vulnerable as they get older? Are boys or girls more likely to be targeted?  Thus possible changes and developments in networks must form part of ongoing monitoring and work with the adult. The explicit question ‘which children are coming into contact with this person and on what basis?’ must be checked regularly.

Some children may be subject to Child Protection Plans because of contact with an adult or young person who may pose a risk. Monitoring visits must be regular and purposeful, maintaining an overt focus on the possibility of risk. Managers must be alert to the fact that workers may not be able to hold this need for ongoing vigilance in mind and be able to act as a further checking mechanism by raising the issue in supervision and by ensuring via auditing that attention is being paid to the possibility of the adult or young person gaining increasing access to children.

If workers are unsure about what to share and who to share it with they must discuss this with their line manager who should in turn seek appropriate advice from someone with sufficient expertise.