Sexual Risk Orders / Interim Sexual Risk Orders
A Sexual Risk Order is a civil behavioural order imposed in a magistrates court under the power and provisions at s.122A - 122K Sexual Offences Act 2003. An SRO is not a criminal sanction, but does lead to limited notification requirements (inclusion on the sex offenders' register), and can therefore have profound consequences for a person who is made subject to the Order.
The police commonly apply for an SRO against someone suspected of engaging in either sexual offences or sexually risky behaviour but where there is either insufficient evidence to bring a criminal prosecution against that person, or as an interim measure in order to be given supervisory powers where a criminal prosecution is likely to be protracted.
An application for an SRO can be resisted on either or both of evidential grounds, or procedural grounds, and if the person against whom an order is applied for intends to resist the application, or resist the proposed terms of the order applied for then it is important to engage with the proceedings as soon as they are initiated.
Example results:
Chief Constable of Cheshire v AB, 2025, Crewe Magistrates' Court – represented an 18 year old against whom the police applied for an SRO. The court found that it was necessary to make an interim order pending a hearing into the following year at which the full application will be considered, but Damian persuaded the court not to impose any terms at all to the order, thus rendering its effect as notification requirements only. This had the effect of giving the police no supervisory powers at all save for recording his usual home address, and removing from the subject the burden of invasive
Chief Constable of Cumbria v Y, 2023, Carlisle Magistrates’ Court – resisted an application by the Chief Constable for a Sexual Risk Order in circumstances in which the client admitted having engaged in depraved online conversations with a UCO, and at least two real children, as to the sexual abuse of children. Successful: the Chief Constable’s application was refused in its entirety.
Chief Constable of Cumbria v WH, 2023, Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court – represented a client resisting an application by the Chief Constable for a Sexual Risk Order in circumstances in which he had shared his diary with the police in which he had recorded his sexual fantasising about decapitating women, and had taken to touching random women in the street and had purchased weapons online. Unsurprisingly, the court found that it was necessary to impose an SRO with far reaching supervisory terms for the police to monitor him. Damian succeeded in persuading the court to limit its duration to two years, from the ten years that the police had sought.