Supreme court rejects Home Office challenge, saying it breaches criminals' human rights to be on sex offenders' register for life

Paedophiles and rapists are to be given the right to appeal against being on the sex offenders' register for life.

Criminals in England and Wales will now be able to argue that their names and addresses should be deleted from the database because they are no longer a risk to the public, it has been reported.

Ministers are due to announce the proposals following a decision at the supreme court last year.

Five justices of the supreme court, the highest in the land, rejected a Home Office challenge to rulings that it breaches the human rights of rapists and paedophiles to be on the register for life with no chance of review.

When the ruling was given, the president of the court, Lord Phillips, said it was obvious there must be circumstances in which an appropriate tribunal could reliably conclude that the risk of an individual carrying out a further sexual offence could be discounted.

Two convicted sex offenders went to the high court in 2008, where three judges ruled that their "indefinite" registration with no right of review was "incompatible" with their rights to privacy.

This decision, won by a teenager referred to as JF, and Angus Thompson from Newcastle upon Tyne, was upheld by three judges at the court of appeal in 2009.

JF was convicted of two offences of rape of a child under 13 and other sexual offences. He was 11 at the time of the assaults. In October 2005 he was sentenced to 30 months' detention by Liverpool crown court and released on licence in January 2007.

Mr Thompson was sentenced in November 1996 to five years' imprisonment on two counts of indecent assault on a female and other offences of actual bodily harm. He was released in April 2000.

Currently anyone sentenced to at least 30 months in prison for a sexual offence is placed on the register for life. They have to notify the police of their personal details, any change of address, and when they travel abroad.

A government source told the BBC: "We have no choice but to implement the supreme court judgment. There is no right of appeal."

A Home Office spokesman said a draft order needed to be laid down and the proposals debated in parliament, but there was no timetable for this.