Management of an identified sex offender - Greater Manchester Police, 2015

In 2002, a man was convicted of rape in the Republic of Ireland. He left the Republic of Ireland in 2013 while awaiting sentencing for a robbery.

The following year the man was arrested by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) on suspicion of theft, but was subsequently released without charge.

Following his arrest, Interpol Dublin contacted the National Crime Agency (NCA) in Manchester. They shared information regarding the man’s offending history and said they believed the man had travelled to the UK. The NCA asked GMP for information information regarding the man and informed them he was a sex offender. GMP was provided with details of his conviction and sentence. This was shared with GMP’s Sex Offender Management Unit (SOMU).

Interpol Dublin informed the NCA that they were applying for a European Arrest Warrant.

Later in 2015 the man was arrested for sexually assaulting and raping two women in the Greater Manchester area. The incident was referred to us in 2015.

We examined how GMP handled and responded to information that this man was a known sex offender. We also obtained and analysed national and local policies and procedures. We conducted interviews with police officers and employees within GMP and the NCA.

We found that information was shared between relevant departments within GMP. However, intelligence was not recorded on the correct GMP system. The identified sex offender continued to live in the GMP area without restriction or monitoring from SOMU. SOMU was waiting for notification of the European Arrest Warrant as, without this, they did not have any powers to arrest and detain this man. The investigation found that, at the time of in the incident, there was no specific policy or procedure in place within GMP to deal with an incident of this nature.

GMP has since introduced a new policy, specific to GMP SOMU, setting out the procedure for dealing with foreign national sex offenders.

We made a recommendation regarding the recording of intelligence by GMP. As a result, the force responded that a new system was being introduced which would ensure any intelligence received by the force would be available to all operational staff.