A MAN placed on the Sex Offenders Register after intending to humiliate a public servant in the course of her duties has been removed early from the list.
In what the Royal Court described as an ‘unusual’ application – because the individual, who was originally assessed as posing a high risk of general reconviction, was a serving prisoner at the time of his appeal – it decided to reduce by three years his period on the register.
Announcing the decision, the Deputy Bailiff, Robert MacRae, sitting with Jurats Robert Christensen and Alison Opfermann, said the court would normally specify a period of at least five years, but he continued: “The reason for selecting a period of two years was that, on the evidence and as subsequently determined by the probation officer, the offence itself was not sexually motivated, in that [the defendant] obtained no sexual gratification from the act. It was designed to humiliate a public servant in the course of her duties.”
No further details were given about the offence.
Mr MacRae said there was a public interest in removing from the register – which currently has more than 120 names on it – those who no longer posed a risk of sexual reoffending.
At a hearing held earlier in the summer, the Royal Court agreed to deal with the application in private, but to publicise its judgment “so that the public could properly understand the reasons for the decision that the court had made”.
The Deputy Bailiff noted that the police had expressed the view that “there was no current concern in relation to him committing sexual offences”.
He continued: “It can never be said that an offender who has committed a sexual offence is at no risk of committing a further sexual offence, but this was an unusual offence in the first instance, as we have said.
“It was not an offence where there was real sexual intent.”
The court heard that the victim “had not given this incident a second thought” and it had had “no impact on her”.
The individual has now been released from the list.
