Living in a home with children whilst on SOPO

[shaky13]

There is a SOPO in place indefinately for sexual offence over 16 year old.
Nowhere does it say that cannot reside where a child is.
In fact the only condition is that cannot work as taxi driver. This condition has never been breached.
When intially on licence some 10 years ago while at a probation hostel..there was that condition. But licence period is over. 10 years back.

Been residing at family home since sentence ended and expired in 2017. There is 3 year old born 2019 and new born baby. Now suddenly social services have said leave said home immediately or child protection services will be put in place to remove children.

As said there are no breaches at all. Is this possible? Any advice on this?

[Need help 2021]

Hi is the baby your child or someone that lives in the same house and if you was staying there from 2017 did the say Wht is the problem now ?

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

There is a SOPO in place indefinately for sexual offence over 16 year old.
Nowhere does it say that cannot reside where a child is.
In fact the only condition is that cannot work as taxi driver. This condition has never been breached.
When intially on licence some 10 years ago while at a probation hostel..there was that condition. But licence period is over. 10 years back.

Been residing at family home since sentence ended and expired in 2017. There is 3 year old born 2019 and new born baby. Now suddenly social services have said leave said home immediately or child protection services will be put in place to remove children.

As said there are no breaches at all. Is this possible? Any advice on this?

Dear Shaky13,

Welcome to the parents forum and thankyou for your post. I hope that the following information and advice is helpful to you.

You say that you were issued with a Sexual Harm Prevention Order for an offence committed some time ago. You have been living in the family home since 2017. There are two children in the home; a three year old and a new born baby. Children’s services have become involved and have asked you to leave the family home.

Firstly I am not clear if you are the a parent for these children, or if you are an extended family member. However, whether you are a parent or an extended family member, children’s services can recommend that you leave the family home if they are concerned that your presence puts the children living there at risk of harm. Children’s services have no legal jurisdiction to ‘enforce’ an adult to leave the family home, however if the adult goes against their recommendation and continues living in the home then this is likely to increase their concerns and may result in child protection enquiries or care proceedings.

Children’s services can only remove children from their parents care if they are granted a court order by the family court. This would usually be an interim care order or an emergency protection order. If one of these orders is granted then children’s services will gain parental responsibility for the children and can choose to remove them from the family home.

It is not clear why children’s services have only just become involved, however it may be that they were not aware that you were living in the family home until very recently.

It would be important for the parents of the children to speak with the social worker, and perhaps their team manager, to ensure that they are fully informed about what steps children’s services might take if they go against the recommendation that you should move out of the family home. The parents can ask children’s services to work with them and if they wish you to continue living in the family home they could ask children’s services for a risk assessment to be completed to see if this is possible. The Lucy Faithfull Foundation may be a helpful organisation to contact in regards to this.

You can find more information on our website HERE about the child protection process. We have more information HERE about children’s services involvement when there is concern of sexual abuse.

I hope that this is helpful. Please post again if you have further queries, or you can call our free, confidential helpline on 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday, 9:30am – 3pm).

Best wishes,
Suzie