What we're fighting for
We went through the legislation line by line. What we found has been turned into detailed draft written parliamentary questions, now with MPs for tabling — once tabled, Government ministers must answer them on the record — and there is more to come. These are our first demands, drawn from the evidence:
Close the name-change loophole — back Della's Law
In the UK, anyone can change their name by deed poll. It's a simple legal document, and no questions are asked.
That should never become a disguise. But right now, it can.
A DBS check (Disclosure and Barring Service) is the criminal record check that schools, employers and volunteer groups rely on to keep children safe. It checks the name a person gives. Any past names depend on the offender being honest enough to declare them.
So if someone who poses a risk to children takes a new name and doesn't declare it, their DBS check can come back clean. A clean record they should never have.
We stand with Della's Law in demanding this route is shut for good.
This is not a theoretical risk. National press reports say the man who murdered Preston has changed his name by deed poll, from prison. He is serving a whole life order. He will never be released. And the system still let him do it.
If a man who will never walk free can take a new name unchallenged, so can every offender who will one day be released. They can walk out with a clean-looking identity.
Parliament has already voted to close part of this gap. Section 118 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026, known as Della's Law, says a registered sex offender must tell the police at least seven days before using a new name. It was passed in April 2026. It has still not been switched on.
We are demanding that Della's Law is switched on. We are demanding that every name an offender uses is permanently linked across police, DBS, passport, DVLA, prison and court records, including in Scotland and Northern Ireland. And we are demanding that courts send an offender's details, including every known name, straight to the police at sentencing.
Pass the Eleven Hour Amendment
Under the notification rules, a registered sex offender must notify the police if they stay for twelve hours or more in a household where a child lives — and even then, only within three days afterwards, on the offender's own honesty. But those hours do not add up across visits: stay eleven hours, leave, and return — again and again — and the duty to notify never triggers. A known offender can share a child's home night after night, and on paper it counts as nothing. Eleven hours is not a loophole. It is a door left open. We are demanding the threshold be reduced and made cumulative, so that repeated contact is counted for what it is — and we have told Parliament exactly which regulation to fix.
Switch on the powers Parliament already passed
There is a scheme called “Sarah's Law”. Its official name is the Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme. It lets anyone, whether a parent, grandparent, neighbour or friend, ask the police whether someone who has contact with a child has a record of sexual offences against children. If they do, the police are expected to tell the person best placed to protect that child. Usually, that is a parent.
But think about what that means when the danger is inside the home. If the offender is the mother's partner, the person the police tell may be the very person standing by them. A worried grandmother or neighbour can ask, but the answer may never reach them. The child is left relying on the one adult who won't act.
The scheme has other weaknesses too. Dangers beyond sexual offences, such as violent offending, are only shared if the police choose to share them. Many families don't realise that anyone, not just a parent, can ask. Police guidance aims to answer within 28 days, and it can take longer. A child at risk does not have 28 days.
Most importantly, the scheme is not actually law. It runs on police guidance alone, so it carries no legal guarantee.
Parliament has already fixed this, on paper. Section 97 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 gives the Government the power to turn the scheme into law. That power is live. The Government could use it today, with no new vote. It has not.
Section 120 of the same Act has not been switched on either. It requires notification before a registered sex offender enters specified premises where children are present. Parliament voted it through. Debated, passed, shelved.
We are demanding the Government use the powers it already holds. That means statutory guidance under section 97 that sets enforceable timescales, keeps the person who asked informed, presumes relevant violent offending will be disclosed as well as sexual offences, and gives written reasons and a route to review whenever disclosure is refused. And it means bringing Chapter 5 of Part 5 of the Act into force, including sections 118 and 120.
One record that speaks for them
Hospitals, police, schools and social services each hold their own records — and no one sees the whole child. When a family moves between council areas or UK nations, the warnings don’t always follow. Two-year-old Isabella Jonas-Wheildon moved area twice in the weeks before she was murdered; the review into her death called for national guidance on cross-border working. There is still no single safeguarding record that follows a child across council areas and UK nations.
We are demanding one safeguarding record for every child with an active concern — visible to every agency, following the child across all four UK nations. Read the full ask.
Unshaken: ready before the crying starts
Every baby cries, and sometimes nothing will settle them. Persistent crying is a known trigger for babies being shaken, and shaking a baby can cause lasting injury, brain damage or death. Our ask is specific: every adopter and foster carer of a baby should complete preparation for coping with crying before placement, or within days of an emergency placement, and every kinship carer should receive it at the point of placement, with completion recorded and followed up. It must never delay a baby going to family.
We are demanding that coping with crying and preventing head injury become a required part of preparation for every adult caring for a baby placed through adoption, fostering or kinship care, that warning signs after placement are acted on, that nurseries and childminders are trained to spot them, and that every new parent, mother, father and partner, is offered support too, in all four UK nations. Read the full ask.
