Talk:Violent and Sex Offender Register

Notification periods

To avoid confusion (as someone reverted my edit): The notification period is "until the conviction becomes spent". The two factors are inextricibly linked. If a conviction is "spent" then notification CAN NOT be enforced. Please don't revert again. Squirrel (talk) 19:44, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I actually did a lot of research before reverting and everything I have found contradicts your claims. They clearly aren't completely connected as it's possible to be added to ViSOR without having a conviction at all, let alone a spent one. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 makes no reference to ViSOR notification periods (relevant section). From what I can see the notification periods from the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (relevant section) are still in force and have only had minor amendments. Please provide a reliable source which backs up what you are saying as per the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. CT Cooper · talk 20:09, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

The notification periods until the 2012 act came into force were exactly consistent with the time periods in the Rehabilitation Of Offenders Act. Once a conviction becomes "spent" then the notification requirements cease. Therefore an amendment to the ROO will also affect the SOA. You will note that the Rehabilitation Of Offenders Act also makes no reference to ViSOR, it only gives a time period after which a conviction becomes spent (amended by LASPO). I'm not going to get into a legal argument here, but unless you can provide a reference to case law which contradicts what I've just stated then please do not revert again. Squirrel (talk) 23:53, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

That isn't true. s.82 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 seems to be material here. And it has not been amended, unlike the 1974 Act - the only amendment I could find was a regulation that created an appeal mechanism for people who found themselves indefinitely on the register to honour a European Human Rights Court ruling. The fact they for nine years happened to be the same times etc does not mean that they are linked (i.e. correlation is not causation). Many, many such anomalies exist in law. . Until you can show a source that validates what you are saying, your statements above are pure conjecture. WP:V is cornerstone here - one's own personal opinions of what the law should be aren't enough. Orderinchaos 02:43, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

"The notification periods until the 2012 act came into force were exactly consistent with the time periods in the Rehabilitation Of Offenders Act." So what? Parliament seems to have simply decided not to keep them consistent by amending only the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and not also the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Your claim is technically wrong anyway, as people can be placed on ViSOR not only for convictions, but for findings and cautions as well (source). Cautions were not added to the 1973 Act until the amendment under the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (relevant section) came into effect, and under this change cautions are spent as soon as they are given, while for ViSOR cautions have a notification period of two years, which even your revision acknowledges.

Given that my request for sources to back-up your position has not been answered, I think it is fair to conclude that you are just making things up here, which goes against the Wikipedia:No original research policy and the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. I do not need to provide any further sources since a direct citation of relevant legislation and other secondary sources already provided are sufficient to back-up what I'm claiming. However, for clarity I will also provide two secondary sources which show that the notification requirements as set in the 2003 Act still stand, these being: 1 and 2, the latter of which is a relatively recent publication. On the other hand, I have found no sources to back-up your position.

Can I also make the general point that you do not own this article and have no more right to insist that your revision remains in place than anyone else. When one starts to get into an edit war with multiple editors that's usually a good indication that one should think carefully before reverting again. Since the burden is currently on you to provide sources to back-up your claims, and the developing consensus seems to be heading in my direction, I think it is fair to ask that the current revision of the article remains in place until you have provided evidence for your position which is acceptable to all parties in this dispute. I'm happy to leave the tag in place for now. CT Cooper · talk 16:32, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Since you are still active, I'm presuming the above comments have been read and that you have chosen not to reply. I therefore consider the issue resolved unless someone says otherwise, and I'm removing the {{Disputed}} tag from the article. CT Cooper · talk 03:09, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not getting into a slanging match or editing war with anyone. I simply can't be bothered, and somehow I doubt any solicitors use Wikipedia in preference to Archbolds. However, I can confirm that the changes to the Rehabilitation Of Offenders Act enacted by LASPO 2012 came into force in March 2014. This revises the time after which convictions become "spent", both by shortening it, and by making anything resulting in a sentence of up to 4 years (previously 30 months) become spent 7 years after sentence expiry. The ViSOR notification periods tie in with rehabilition periods - it would make a nonsense of the system otherwise if someone were to remain on the SOR for a "spent" conviction. I do have sources for this from within the Probation Service, however I can't reference them as they contain details of convictions (and other sensitive material) which is not in the public domain. Which, I assume, falls under the banner of "original research" until such time as a court transcript from one of the higher courts is in the public domain. Squirrel (talk) 13:17, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

You are correct that it would be considered original research unless backed-up by published sources. If sources change their position on the issue, the article can be updated when that happens. CT Cooper · talk 20:10, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

ViSOR abbreviation

On some government sources, ViSOR stands for Violent and Sex Offender Register, whereas the image used - also obtained from government sources - captions it the Violent Offender and Sex Offender Register. is this worth mentioning/including as an alternative name? Synorem (talk) 15:23, 14 February 2024 (UTC)