Dundee MPs demand foreign offenders review
The home secretary has been urged to do more to ensure that convicted sex offenders from foreign countries can not enter the UK unchallenged.
Brian Hohman.
- By Graham Huband
- Published in the Courier : 30.03.10
- Published online : 30.03.10 @ 01.53pm
Dundee East and West MPs Stewart Hosie and Jim McGovern called on Alan Johnson to review procedures to ensure the monitoring of travellers with convictions coming into Britain was robust enough.
American paedophile Brian Hohman was convicted at Dundee Sheriff Court on Friday of attempting to incite a 15-year-old boy to commit an indecent act at the city's Olympia centre on February 10.
He made comments of a sexual nature to the boy, pointed a pornographic image out to him and attempted to make him commit an act of gross indecency. He also breached the peace.
The 46-year-old from Massachusetts was able to enter the country because the US authorities failed to place his details on an international alert list that would have informed officers in the UK of his past.
Conviction
The UK Border Agency had no idea of the threat Hohman posed and allowed him to continue an extended tour of Europe and South Africa despite the fact he is a registered sex offender in three US states and has a 1993 conviction for the rape and abuse of a child.
The landscape gardener -- who had visited several countries before travelling to a holiday cottage in Fife prior to the offence at Olympia -- was branded a potential "international travelling paedophile" when he came before Sheriff Richard Davidson at Dundee last week.
The sheriff said Hohman was an extreme danger, especially to young boys, and remanded him in custody ahead of sentencing on May 7.
He was also placed on the sex offenders register and will be deported back to America upon completion of his sentence.
The Courier has repeatedly attempted to discuss the case with the US Department of Justice but our calls have not been returned.
Watch list
It is understood Hohman has now been placed on the relevant watch list but his movements are curtailed anyway as he is in custody waiting to hear his fate from the court.
Dundee East MP Stewart Hosie reiterated his concern over the case last night and said the British authorities had to do everything in their power to ensure there was no repeat.
"What I have committed to do today is go back to the home secretary and ask if he is now satisfied that the procedures are robust enough and that anyone with similar convictions will not fall through the gaps (in future)," Mr Hosie said.
"He needs to ask the question of the American authorities, would it not make more sense for anyone with similar convictions to be placed on the international alert register, irrespective of whether their intention is to travel or not.
"The home secretary needs to satisfy himself that everything that could be done, and should be done, is in place."
Investigation
Dundee West MP Jim McGovern tabled a parliamentary question yesterday asking Mr Johnson for a full investigation of the case.
His question stated, "To ask the secretary of state for the Home Department, if he will investigate with the UK Borders Agency how a known and convicted US sex offender was allowed into the UK where he committed and has been convicted of incitement to commit an indecent act in Dundee, and what changes will be made to ensure this doesn't happen again."
The UK Border Agency previously told The Courier that everyone entering Britain was checked against a watch list but it was incumbent on an offender's country of origin to provide details-something that did not happen in the Hohman case.
Director Steve Brassington said, "The onus for passing international information on to the UK police rests with the authorities in each country concerned.
"Our priority is to protect the public and we seek to remove foreign law-breakers who commit serious offences from the UK at the earliest opportunity."
