Ireland: Child protection agencies in Ireland have warned that an Ian Huntley could obtain work with children here, despite the existence of Garda checks.
Although Ian Huntley came to the attention of police in the UK on 10 occasions, many of them in relation to allegations of sex attacks on young girls, he was never convicted. Only those convicted are placed on the sex offenders' register either in the UK or here. However, he did use two different names, his father's and his mother's, and the Humberside police have been quoted as saying it would have been "helpful" if reports against him in both names were correlated. The checks carried out by his employers in Soham primary school revealed nothing.
Checks available here are inadequate, according to Mr Owen Keenan of Barnardos. They apply only to people working for State agencies on a full-time basis, and teachers are exempt.
They also apply only to people working in a professional capacity with children, not in an administrative or maintenance capacity with the organisation. Mr Keenan pointed out that Huntley was working as a care-taker, and therefore would not have been subjected to such checks in Ireland.
"It does not matter to a child who is abused whether the abuser was working for a voluntary or State agency, or was working full or part-time," said Mr Keenan.
He said Barnardos, though a voluntary organisation, requires all applicants for positions with the organisation to sign a form permitting it to get Garda clearance, and the Garda is very helpful in carrying out checks when asked.
"We have set a higher standard than that set by the Government," he said.
Problems still exist where people suspected of abusing children have never had a conviction. "There is an area where people have had a shadow over them and they have quietly left an organisation and moved to another.
"We accept there are civil liberties implications to acting on suspicion, but we would put the civil liberties of the child first," Mr Keenan said.
Mr Paul Gilligan of the ISPCC said that vetting should be a statutory obligation for all those working with children.