Rhiana Moore's brutal murder could have been avoided if Bermuda had a sex offenders' register in place. That is not to say that her murder would have been avoided, but it would have given those charged with the protection of a 14-year-old child a chance to stop her relationship with Ze Selassie, who was convicted on Friday of her murder.

It is also possible that she could have been saved if the most basic measures available under the law were followed — and attempts to find out if they were have been met with a deafening silence.

Compelling arguments have been made for a sexual offenders register for more than ten years. And the facts are that such registers have been in place in the US for decades. Megan's Law, the Quincy Model and many others show that these programmes work.

Yet the calls for such a register in Bermuda made by Police officers, social workers, women's and children's advocates and others intimately involved with these problems, have been consistently ignored, not least to protect the privacy of the offenders once they are released from prison. Instead, Bermuda satisfies itself with half measures and can't even say if those elementary steps are followed.

For example, convicted sex offenders are supposed to be monitored for ten years after being released from prison. And they can only be released early from prison if they agree to treatment and supervision.

Attempts to find out if Selassie received treatment in or out of prison — he was released after serving two out of six years for sexual assault — have been ignored, as have attempts to find out if he was monitored.

The chances of her not getting embroiled in a relationship with a man in her 30s with a laundry list of prior convictions for sexual offences would have been all the greater if Bermuda had a sex offenders register.

At the very least, her mother, who was aware Rhiana knew Selassie, although they seem to have kept the nature of the relationship a secret from her, could have consulted the register and discovered his history.

Even without a register, monitoring could have unearthed the fact that Selassie was having a completely inappropriate relationship with a child barely out of puberty. Now, perhaps the community will finally be roused from its lethargy and its apparent desire to protect offenders instead of their future victims.

There is no evidence, so far, that Ze Selassie was being monitored after his release for rape having served two out of six years of his sentence. What's more the psychological counselling available to sex offenders in Westgate has been notoriously uneven and inconsistent. In any event, the evidence that counselling provides long term assistance to sex offenders is inconclusive.

To be sure, Selassie sought counselling after his 1999 conviction, and had not been charged with a crime since he was released in 2002. His parents also suspected that he had been sexually abused as a child. This is not uncommon for sex offenders, and often is part of a cycle of sexual abuse.

What is of grave concern is that Selassie was flagged up as a person who was classed as a high risk sex offender who needed treatment — and it is not clear if he got it or not.

What is now clear is that he has followed a classic spiral of sexual offences, beginning with voyeurism in the early 1990s, continuing with rape in 1999 and now, ten years later, a clandestine affair with a 14-year-old leading to her pregnancy and her brutal murder.

Selassie is now paying the consequences for his actions, although that will never bring Rhiana back. But what about the society that so failed Rhiana? What consequences do we pay? How do we repay the debt we owe her for failing to protect her?

A sexual offenders register would be a start.