Legislation allowing the public to seek information about sex offenders in the community has lain dormant since being passed eight years ago prompting calls for a review of whether it is working properly.

Attorney General (AG) Kim Wilson yesterday confirmed that dangerous offenders have been obliged to inform the Police of their whereabouts after their release since the legislation was passed in October 2001.

However, there have been no cases in which the information was made public and the community does not have an automatic right to be notified of dangerous convicts as in some US states under "Megan's Law".

The news caused Shadow AG Trevor Moniz to dismiss the current measures as a "secret" sex offenders' register and call for the "ridiculous" law to be reviewed so the public can be told about dangerous offenders.

Concern over the issue has come to the fore since Ze Selassie, 33, was convicted on Thursday of the premeditated murder of schoolgirl Rhiana Moore. He got the 14-year-old pregnant despite her being under the age of legal consent for sex, then killed her and their unborn child last May.

Ten years prior, Selassie drugged and raped a woman in her own home, and before that he had a string of convictions for prowling around women's homes and committing acts of voyeurism.

He was handed a six-year jail sentence for the rape, but was released on parole just two years later despite having been labelled as a "high risk" offender by the authorities. He was not subject to any supervision by the authorities after being released. This was because the legislation allowing the authorities to monitor such offenders in the community and notify the public in appropriate circumstances was not passed until October 29, 2001, almost two years after his rape conviction. Meanwhile, Rhiana's mother knew nothing of her daughter's secret relationship with the convicted rapist.

The legislation passed in 2001 allows a judge to place the offender under a supervision order for up to ten years under which the offender would have to inform the Police of his address and any subsequent change to this address or name. Under extended powers the Minister of Justice could also order the disclosure of any details, including photographs, of an offender to appropriate individuals or groups if that individual is thought to pose a significant threat.

In an interview with The Royal Gazette in the aftermath of the Moore case yesterday, Senator Wilson, who is also the Minister of Justice, explained that while she can decide in some cases that certain community members need to be informed, most of the time the onus lies with members of the public with concerns to request the information.

She explained that details of potentially dangerous convicts will not be made public automatically as in some states in the US where it is listed on websites under legislation known as "Megan's Law." This is due to human rights concerns.

"Bermuda has not gone down the route of general publication of information on sex offenders. In this we've followed the UK and not the USA, primarily because the background to our legislation is the European Convention on Human Rights," she said.

"Although the convention is not directly justiciable in our courts, we could nevertheless be in breach of Article Eight (right of respect for private life) if we had US-type general disclosure. That would get the UK into trouble in Strasbourg.

"As the law is written, disclosure of public notification of information on sex offenders can be made by the Minister of Justice on my own motion or in response to a request from anyone. What the law does not do is provide a freely-accessible database that anyone can search, in the way that some US states publish information on paedophiles on the internet. The law here, as in the UK, does not go as far as the so-called 'Megan's Laws' prevalent in the US."

Senator Wilson said that she had, yesterday, issued a directive to law enforcers explaining how the law should be used, amid public concern over the issue in the aftermath of the Rhiana Moore murder case.

However, Shadow Attorney Mr. Moniz expressed concern that the current law does not go far enough. He called for communities to be able to find out when a dangerous criminal is in their midst without having to make an application to the authorities.

"This is not a sex offenders' register. That, one would assume, would be open to the public, not a secret register or a confidential register. This is ridiculous and wouldn't work. You would not know when to apply. How would you know to apply to seek information? It seems there is a bureaucracy here and I don't know what they were thinking when they initiated it," he said.

Mr. Moniz said he would like to see the law reviewed in the light of the Rhiana Moore case.

"We need decent legislation. We need it to work. We need some leadership," he urged. "The message sent to the community is that nobody cares. This is a society like any other that has its share of sexual offenders and we are not dealing with it effectively."

However, Sen. Wilson stressed: "The decision to disclose information about a sex offender is a very difficult one as the offender's rights have to be balanced against the risks he poses to persons with whom he may establish relationships."

Sen. Wilson stressed that she inherited the law as it stands from her predecessors in the AG post and was not privy to the debate over how it should be written. But asked if she felt the current law was stringent enough, she replied: "I would have to say yes."

As The Royal Gazette first reported on Friday, campaigners from the Women's Resource Centre and the Coalition for the Protection of Children also back the notion of the community being informed about sex offenders by way of a public register.