Firstly, let’s leave aside the issue of why he spent 16 months in custody before his trial. That is a separate matter to the order he has been subject to. That said, the issue needs to be thought through before hysteria takes a hold.
“I cannot understand how the Police can get an order without a Court/Jury appearance.”
To be clear they cannot. There is no jury involved (it is not a criminal trial).
Sexual Risk Orders can be made in the Magistrates’ Court. Either party can appeal to the Crown Court if they disagree with any decision made in the Magistrates’ Court in relation to the order.
There is a general rule in the UK that you cannot be prosecuted for what you might do or are thinking about doing. However, the first duty of the police is to prevent crime and they need tools to carry out that duty. There are instances where orders can be made to reduce the risk of harm to others. A simple and more widely used measure is restraining orders. These can prevent individuals contacting certain people or visiting certain places, even though no criminal conviction associated with those people or places has taken place. There seems to be no similar objection to those orders.
S113 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 provides for Sexual Risk orders and for Sexual Harm Prevention orders. The guidance that goes with that Act says this about Sexual Risk Orders:
“Sexual Risk Orders can be made where a person has done an act of a
sexual nature as a result of which there is reasonable cause to believe that it is necessary for such an order to be made, even if they have never been convicted. They replace the previous Risk of Sexual Harm Orders.
The court needs to be satisfied that the order is necessary for protecting the public, or any particular members of the public, from sexual harm from the defendant; or protecting children or vulnerable adults generally, or any particular children or vulnerable adults, from sexual harm from the defendant outside the United Kingdom.
The Orders prohibit the defendant from doing anything described in the order, and can include a prohibition on foreign travel (replacing Foreign Travel Orders which were introduced by the Sexual Offences Act 2003).”
I’m not so sure that these measures indicate that the UK is on its way to a totalitarian state. If a person was known to engage in certain practices which place others at risk it surely makes sense to do whatever is necessary within the law to prevent those activities. The protection from a totalitarian state is the courts who must be satisfied that such an order is necessary and proportional. From what I see the law is damned if it does and damned if it does not. If a member of the public suffers at the hands of a perpetrator who may have been prevented from his or her activities by means of one of these orders, no doubt there will be a hue and cry to ask “Why was (s)he not prevented from doing this? Everybody knows what (s)he is like”.
In my view too much emphasis is placed on a criminal conviction being the dividing line. “Guilty until proven innocent” is a legal convention, not a fact. As soon as you steal somebody’s wallet you are guilty. There may not be sufficient evidence to convict you, but you are none the less guilty. Society needs to be protected from guilty people, especially when their activities are extremely unpleasant.