What is Sarah’s Law? Sarah Payne’s murder in 2000 prompted the child sex offender disclosure scheme
EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Sarah Payne was running through cornfields when she was abducted and murdered by paedophile Roy Whiting.
After her death her parents campaigned to change the law so other mums and dads could find out if a child sex-offender was living in their area.
What happened to Sarah Payne and when did she disappear?
Sarah Evelyn Isobel Payne was eight-years-old when she was abducted and murdered as she played hide and seek with her brothers in a cornfield near her grandparent's home in July 2000.
After 17 days of searching her body was found in a field near Oulborough, around 15 miles from where she disappeared in Kingston Gorse.
Sarah’s brother Lee — now 30 and a father of one — was 13 when he ran to look for Sarah and saw killer Roy Whiting’s van speeding off.
Her other brother Luke, 12, and sister Charlotte, six, had already run to their grandparents’ house.
Paedophile Whiting, 57, is serving 40 years for his crimes.
What is Sarah's Law?
The child sex offender disclosure scheme in England and Wales (also sometimes known as "Sarah’s Law"), allows anyone to formally ask the police if someone with access to a child has a record for child sexual offences.
Police will reveal details confidentially to the person most able to protect the child (usually parents, carers or guardians) if they think it is in the child’s interests.
Scotland run a similar nationwide scheme called Keeping children safe which allows parents, carers and guardians of children under 18 years old to ask the police if someone who has contact with their child has a record for sexual offences against children, or other offences that could put that child at risk.
No such scheme is formally available in Northern Ireland. However, information on sex offenders can be, and is, shared in a controlled way by the police where necessary for the purposes of child protection or risk management.
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Why was Sarah's law developed?
Following Sarah's death, the News of the World, supported by Sarah's parents, launched a campaign calling for a UK version of what is known as “Megan's Law” in the United States.
The proposed "Sarah's Law" would require the police to make information about local sex offenders available to the public.
The scheme was piloted in four police areas in in 2008 and in August 2010 the Home Office announced that it would be rolled out across all 43 police areas in England and Wales.