Sex offenders may face being sent back to prison if they don’t inform police of their own or their partner’s pregnancy following a review into the death of aristocrat Constance Marten’s baby daughter.
Safeguarding experts are calling on the Government to tighten notification requirements for registered sex offenders, as part of a national review into baby Victoria’s death.
Marten and her convicted rapist partner Mark Gordon were jailed last year for killing their newborn baby while on the run.
In 1989, British national Gordon was jailed in the US for raping a woman in Florida when he was aged just 14.
Having been convicted and jailed in the US, the review said when he was deported back to the UK he was not required to share details about new partners or pregnancy.
During their relationship, described by the review as “insular and co-dependent”, they had five children, four of whom were removed into care.
At least three of the pregnancies were concealed or disclosed late, which the review said limited “safeguarding opportunities”.
There is no legal duty on a woman to disclose her pregnancy, the review said, but it noted a “legal and ethical tension between a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and practitioners’ duty to safeguard unborn infants”.
Among its recommendations, the national Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel’s report said the Government should tighten registration requirements in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 regarding pregnancy.
Panel chairman Sir David Holmes said: “Government should strengthen the registration requirements of registered sex offenders to ensure that they are giving information about new relationships and particularly…