The British government yesterday ordered an inquiry into why Ian Huntley, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for murdering Soham school friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, had been allowed to work with children despite long-held police suspicions that he was a paedophile.
Police and social services in Huntley's home town of Grimsby had for years suspected him of being a serial sexual abuser of children. He was investigated on 10 separate occasions between 1995 and 1999 on allegations including four rapes, three incidents of underage sex and, in one case, indecent assault on an 11-year-old girl.
Yet when he moved to Soham, 100 miles away, to take a job as resident caretaker of a local primary school, information about his past was not made available to school authorities.
Child protection agencies in Ireland warned last night that someone like Huntley could obtain work with children here, and have called for improved vetting procedures.
The checks available here are inadequate, according to Mr Owen Keenan of Barnardos. They applied only to people working for State agencies on a full-time basis, and teachers were exempt.
They also applied only to people working in a professional capacity with children, not in an administrative or maintenance capacity. Mr Keenan pointed out that Huntley was working as a caretaker, and therefore would not have been subjected to such checks in Ireland. He did not have a criminal conviction, which is the prerequisite for a person being placed on the sex offenders' register.
Mr Paul Gilligan of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children said that vetting should be a statutory obligation for all those working with children, and should be wider than covering criminal convictions. He said that a Northern Irish pre-employment consultancy service, which checked out pending cases and dismissals for inappropriate behaviour with children, as well as convictions, should be a model for the Republic.
Reacting to the convictions, the British Home Secretary, Mr David Blunkett, said the inquiry would examine why and how Huntley had slipped through what should have been stringent background security checks that could ultimately have prevented the deaths of Holly and Jessica, who were both 10 when they died last August.
The head teacher of Soham Village School, Mr Howard Gilbert, said Huntley would have been dismissed immediately if the school had any inkling about his past. As it was, the school board found him credible when he was interviewed about child protection issues.
Humberside Chief Constable David Westwood admitted that there had been "system failings and elements of human error". But he blamed the Data Protection Act, which prohibits police from revealing information unless there has been a caution or a conviction.
Huntley was never cautioned or convicted of a sex offence. Only a charge of burglary, which never made it to court, was recorded under his name on the order of a judge.
"We face here the contradictory nature of two public policies," Mr Westwood told reporters. "First is the Data Protection Act, which requires the removal of information relating to individuals. Second is the retaining of information to protect vulnerable people. There is no national guidance on this. It is urgently needed."
Mr Westwood said it would have been "extremely helpful" if his force had recorded that Huntley had been using two names when officers interviewed him over an alleged rape in 1999. "This was a simple human error," he told reporters
Jessica's father, Mr Leslie Chapman, described Huntley as "a time bomb just ready to go off" and unfortunately the two girls were in the wrong place at the wrong time.