Serious offenders off sex register
Rapists and paedophiles are among a list of more than 100 convicts who have been removed from the sex offenders' register, despite courts ruling that they should be on it for life.
The sex attackers have used a human rights ruling to have their names taken off the list, a Sun on Sunday investigation found.
Over the last year the names of 108 people were scrubbed off following a legal test case, the newspaper said.
Among them was a man convicted of r aping a girl under 13, another jailed for burglary with intent to commit rape and a criminal convicted of seven offences of indecent assault on a boy under 16.
Conservative MP Douglas Carswell told the Sun on Sunday: "It's a soft option to begin with to put these people on a register instead of keeping them locked up.
"This will further undermine confidence in the justice system which is a recipe that could lead to mob rule."
It comes after courts ruled that it breaches the human rights of rapists and paedophiles to be on the sex offenders' register for life with no chance of review.
Any convicted offender on the register has to notify the police of their personal details, any change of address and when they travel abroad.
Peter Saunders, of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, told the Sun on Sunday: "It's downright dangerous.
"Victims of sex abuse suffered a life sentence at the hands of these people.
"We believe firmly that they will probably always be a threat to children and others.
"It is unfair to remove them from a system which merely keeps them on the police radar."
Figures obtained by the newspaper under freedom of information laws found that nearly half of those who applied to have their names removed since last September were successful.
The records show 19 offenders were taken off the register in London, 12 in South Yorkshire, 10 in Greater Manchester and six in Cambridgeshire.
Crime Prevention Minister Norman Baker told the newspaper: "If a sex offender remains a risk to the public then they will stay on the register.
"We argued strongly that sex offenders put on the register for life should stay on the register for life. But the Supreme Court ruled they could apply for a review of their case to determine whether or not their names could be removed.
"When an application is made, victims should be told straight away and they have a right to object to it. Police forces carefully review every application to be removed from the register on a case-by-case basis."
