The offenders shielded by law

WHAT is the purpose of data-protection regulations? To protect people’s privacy, naturally, but in this aim, surely the key word is “protection”. And there was precious little of that on offer for Clare Wood when she was murdered by her former boyfriend after months of harassment and assaults. Yet, even though police had known of his record of violence, the law prevented them from telling her.

In tragic retrospect, the patent absurdity of valuing a violent criminal’s privacy over a vulnerable woman’s safety is clear for all to see. Yet the fact remains that, in failing to tell Ms Wood of her new partner’s past after she had met him on Facebook, the police were constrained by the existing regulations.

As Ms Wood’s grief-stricken father, Michael Brown, of Batley, made clear yesterday when he handed in a 1,000-signature petition to Downing Street, there is widespread agreement that these rules must be changed.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Just as the campaigning by the mother of murder victim Sarah Payne resulted in a new law giving parents the right to know whether anyone with access to their children has child-sex convictions, a similar law giving women in abusive relationships the right to know about their partners’ pasts would be a fitting tribute to Ms Wood and the efforts of her father.

To her credit, Home Secretary Theresa May has been open to persuasion on this and has already started a public consultation. However, it is vital that she wastes no more time. The rules governing data protection in this context must be changed as quickly as possible and before anyone else suffers as a direct result of an inflexible bureaucracy.