I don’t know, just lost

[Really Scared]

Hi all

First of all I’ve read so many things on here and there is some great advice so Thankyou for helping me to my journey this far.
I am the offender and I have recently completed my 2yr community order for possession of IIOC and have 2.5 years left on the register and 2.5 years on a shpo which is based solely on internet restrictions.
I was being investigated for 3.5 years and took almost another year to charge.
During that time I had supervised access to my children and could live in the same house as my then wife and my kids.
During that year I was waiting to be charged it was agreed with SS that I could have unsupervised access in public places but not in private dwellings.
Me and my now x-wife split just after I was convicted, at this point in time I was still having to unsupervised access in public places and recieved a letter shortly after saying how well our children were doing and we would look to lesson the restrictions as time progressed.
Then, a few months later, all of a sudden I was deemed a likelyhood of a contact offence, no explanation or anything, just you can’t stay overnight with your children or have any unsupervised contact.
I was told that they would take the kids away from me so I agreed to this for the period of my sentence and at that point it will be reviewed…
Yep you guessed it, it is now being reviewed…..
I’ve just had an initial teams call with the social worker involved and it didn’t go well.
The biggest thing that came out of it was something that no one has ever told me.
I was really hoping that someone could shed some light on it and maybe give me some advice on how to proceed.
The social worker said
“They have guidance to follow that states that anyone on the register can not have unsupervised access to anyone under 18 for more than 12 hours.”
Is this true?
Thanks in advance

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Really Scared

Welcome back to the parents’ board. Thank you for your post. My name is Suzie and I am Family Rights Group’s online adviser.

Thank you also for your feedback that the advice you have found on this forum has been helpful to you and supported your progress .

You have provided a helpful summary of the history which led to children’s services being involved with your children i.e. your conviction for possession of child sexual images. Your notification restrictions and the Sexual Harm Prevention Order remain in place for two and a half more years. But you have competed your 2 year community order. You may have completed a treatment programme as part of the order. During this period you and your now ex-wife separated.

You describe the arrangements that were in place for you to see your children to begin with and how they changed to no unsupervised contact and no overnight contact. I am sorry that children’s services did not provide you with any explanation as to why the level of risk rose and why they assessed you to be a risk of committing a contact offence. I would suggest that you ask children’s services, for written clarification of their decision making at that time.

Now that your community order sentence has been completed, children’s services have begun a review of the arrangements for you to see your children, which you agreed with them at the time.

I am glad that the review is taking place. Your query relates to a comment made by the social worker referring to guidance which they say states that registered sex offenders ‘cannot have unsupervised access to anyone under 18 for more than 12 hours’.

You are rightly querying whether this is true.

There are a couple of observations to make about this.

Firstly, the timescale quoted is very unclear, it does not specify if the 12 hour period means a continuous period of 12 hours, or overall per week, per month etc. Therefore this needs clarification.

Secondly, where someone is identified as posing a potential risk of harm to a child this is not necessarily dependent on the time they spend with a child.

I am unsure what the social worker means by guidance or what guidance they are quoting.

Social workers comply with a range of statutory guidance, practice guidance and internal policies and procedures. The social worker used the term ‘guidance’ but it is possible that they were referring to any of the above.

Social workers are required to be transparent in their work with families and to ensure that their processes are fair.

Therefore, I would suggest that you send a brief polite email to the social worker, copying in their manager if you wish. You could:

• Confirm your willingness to continue to work openly with them
• Confirm that your children’s welfare is your main concern
• That you would like to have the best relationship you can with the children
• Acknowledge the recent teams call as part of the review process
• Ask them to clarify in writing what guidance they are referring to and the specific reference they quote
• Ask for clarification about what the timescale mentioned means
• Ask for clarification about what happens next and how any risk assessment will be carried out.

Any assessment of your children’s needs and risk assessment of you will be specific to your circumstances. Therefore, the outcome of this review will depend on individual risks and circumstances. It is important for you to know what to expect so that you can participate fully.

Notification on the Sex Offenders Register does require offenders to notify police where living or staying with a person aged under 18 for 12 hours or more so it is possible that this is what the social worker was referring to although it is not the same thing as they quoted.

Your ex-wife has parental responsibility, as do you. She is the children’s main carer so she will need to be aware of the outcome of this review. She will also make decisions about what contact she is willing to agree to. If there is a dispute between you and your ex-wife then I would recommend that you get specialist private law advice. You can find details of where to get legal advice here.

I hope this is helpful.

If you have any further questions about children’s services, please do post back or contact the advice service via another of our options which you can find here.

Best wishes

Suzie