The BBC News reported a 30% increase in re-offending by registered sex offenders. They showed an image of a man looking at the internet, and they pointed viewers towards the recent case of a man convicted of snatching a child from a bath.

The perception they promote is very misleading. Most "re-offending" is by people failing to comply with the conditions of the register, committing acts which are not illegal for the rest of us. For example, someone might genuinely get a date mixed up and miss their yearly visit to the police station by one day. This might involve failure to tell the police what the police already know, i.e. failing to report that there are no changes of circumstance. A bit of a nonsense really.

One condition of the register states that those on it must inform the police if they are to spend more than seven days "at another address". This implies seven days at a particular address, but it means seven days away from the registered address. A person could be fined or imprisoned for a genuine misunderstanding, because the wording is misleading and could even qualify as entrapment.

The BBC either haven't fully reseaarched the matter, or they intentionally gave a false impression by the wording of, and images within their report.

No doubt there will now be calls for tighter controls, swifter and more severe convictions, and the resurrection of the Sarah's Law argument.

All totally unnecessary.

Maybe it's been a slow news day - or there is something being buried beneath this report for political reasons.

Now what could the BBC be hiding?

This?

www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/...;amp;in_page_id=1770

or this?

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=...06/10/15/nbeeb15.xml