The paedophile next door

What do you do when a convicted sex offender like John 'Yogi' Stevenson moves into your neighbourhood? By Jane Hardy

Monday, May 12, 2008

It seems an invitation to disaster, yet this is what happened when John 'Yogi' Stevenson (58) left Magilligan prison recently and moved into a flat near Whiteabbey Primary School, Newtownabbey.

His speciality was enticing small girls in north Belfast into his car with sweets and money, then showing them pornographic images and sexually abusing them.

Stevenson, a former rugby player, pleaded guilty to a list of offences and was convicted of, among other crimes, indecent assault, inciting a child to an act of gross indecency, showing indecent images to children and possession of child porn. He owned over 500 pornographic images, including pictures of children being raped.

In theory, the police and probation service are expected confidentially to inform interested parties such as schoolteachers, doctors and youth workers if a paedophile is in their area, so that they can take appropriate action.

But Whiteabbey Primary School principal Peter Wright only found out about John 'Yogi' Stevenson's whereabouts when he was approached by parents desperately concerned by what they'd read in the Press.

He doesn't sound happy about the fact. "I was not informed by police, no, in fact I approached them when I heard as I was hugely concerned that such an individual should be living so close to the primary school."

Since then Mr Wright has stepped up protective measures in the school. " We have done a risk assessment concerning Stevenson. We have also had to remind children of the 'Stranger, danger' routine. Police come into school anyway to give short talks about safety." He adds: "We are maintaining high vigilance and it is a fact of life that there may be other individuals in the area that we don't know about ... "

Would he support a UK version of the American Megan's Law, which would mean general disclosure of a paedophile's name, identity and address? "There are two sides to it and you've got to respect the rights of the individual, but my focus is on the children and adults in my care. I would have liked to be approached by the police first.

"We need more joined-up legislation about this. To think that a number one person on the sex offenders' list is living near a school playground, and that presumably the Probation Service had done a risk assessment and thought this was ok, beggars belief."

Cases like these undoubtedly present a headache to the police — who made an official 'No comment' on why they hadn't talked to the head — the Probation Service and other bodies dealing with the complex risk management process following the release of a sex offender into the community.

Nick Carson, head of communications on the Northern Ireland Sex Offenders Strategic Management Committee, starts by noting that "there is no such thing as a prison in the community". He says he can't comment on individual cases but adds that "once somebody commits a sex offence in Northern Ireland, he's in trouble for life". This means that the wordy body dealing with the perceived danger presented by the sex offender, the Multi-agency Sex Offender Risk Assessment and Management (MASRAM) set up in 2001, will be on his or her case indefinitely. Carson adds that there is a lot of new legislation that will make the job of the police easier when dealing with paedophiles. "The Criminal Justice Act passed on April 1 will permit indeterminate sentences, and remove the automatic 50% remission for all sentenced prisoners."

This is the old law that allowed Stevenson back onto the Belfast streets after serving three and a half years of a seven year sentence. And caused Pauline Donaghey, the mother of two little girls who were shown nude photos by him, to react angrily. "It was lucky they weren't abducted. I just feel the sentence he got didn't at all reflect the seriousness of the things he had done. He approached my daughters Chloe and Megan on May 8, 2004, when one was nearly five and the other was just three."

She adds: "I don't think that three and a half years will change someone who's maybe been doing it for 15 years or more."

Nick Carson says he spends a lot of time educating people about sex offenders and the fact that they are individuals who present different levels of risk. He produces a statistic which seems to prove that prison works. "Just under a fifth of sex offenders who get a prison sentence go on to re-offend over their lifetime, whereas the figure is something like 70 to 80% with burglars."

Later, he notes that Stevenson will definitely be being monitored. Surveillance ranges from quarterly reviews of grade two risk sex offenders to monthly reviews and covert monitoring of grade threes ("the highest risk, who are thought likely to reoffend"). Stevenson is thought to fall into the grade two category.

So what do you do with a paedophile newly released from jail? It's an important question and sex offenders have to live somewhere. In the past, over-friendly scoutmasters and teachers weren't automatically demonised; they were regarded as pathetic figures, even though something bad was going on. Now we rightly have a different culture, but the question of how to house sex offenders safely, without their finding new victims or being victimised themselves, is trickier than ever.

Donald Findlater, director of research and development at the Lucy Faithfull Foundation which deals with sex offenders who want help as well as children who are at risk, has an interesting take on the problem. "Because we're used to the idea of addictive, repeated behaviour, we find it difficult to imagine that someone can stop offending. Yet it has been shown that a good treatment programme for sex offenders reduces recidivism by half."

He has sympathy with those who reacted strongly to the news that Stevenson was living so close to Whiteabbey Primary School. "As a parent, yes, I understand. It feels wrong that such an individual with such a past should be located close to a school. But we have maturely to face up to the fact that there are sex offenders among us, known and unknown. And if we go down the US route where sex offenders can't live anywhere near bus stops, parks, schools, because of the supposed risk, then they will be driven underground and keep offending."

Findlater also points to the natural safeguards in society, vigilant people such as Isobel Glenn who spotted that something wasn't right when Stevenson approached Pauline Donaghey's children, and acted. "We have to rely on people knowing when something is wrong, and also recognize that the police are well placed to judge the risk."

Public fears are understandable, but clearly a system is in place that keeps an eye on sex offenders such as Stevenson. And it may be worth while keeping him and his ilk visible in society, rather than hounding them into secret locations where they're more likely to return to their old habits and reoffend, so putting more innocent children at risk.