Scandal of paedophile's school jobs

A paedophile with seven convictions for sex assaults worked as a cleaner and assistant caretaker in London primary schools for nine years before his criminal record was uncovered, it has emerged.

The man, 52-year-old Kypriacous Georgiou, was dismissed from his job in Haringey only after a police investigation into allegations - later withdrawn - that he raped a boy pupil.

Haringey council, already under fire for failing to prevent the death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie, says it did not check his criminal record because it did not have to.

Mr Georgiou was tried at Harrow Crown Court in May 1992 for four counts of indecent assault on a male aged under 14, two counts of gross indecency with a boy and one count of indecent assault on a girl under 16. He was found guilty and imprisoned for nine months.

On his release in 1992, he was taken on by a cleaning firm with a contract in Haringey schools. He said: "I told them I had a police conviction. I didn't tell them what it was for. I just said it was family problems and they said that was okay."

He became a Haringey employee in 1993, when the firm's contract expired. "I didn't mention my conviction, but it was in the records if they had bothered to find out," he said.

Mr Georgiou's criminal record came to light in July, after the parents of a primary school pupil claimed he had been raped at school. After the allegation, he was immediately arrested.

Following an investigation, no charges were made. Police sources said there were "inconsistencies" in the alleged victim's story and no evidence was found to substantiate it.

Last month, the boy's mother withdrew the allegations. But Mr Georgiou was suspended and in September, dismissed for failing to disclose his record.

The scandal has highlighted the ease with which paedophiles and others with criminal records can find jobs working with or near children.

Concern over the effectiveness of police checks has risen further with the influx of supply teachers into London schools, from an increasingly diverse range of countries.

Haringey responded to the disclosure of Mr Georgiou's record by ordering urgent police checks, still continuing, on all its school staff. No other criminal convictions have been uncovered, a spokesman said.

Chief executive David Warwick said: "We were very concerned to find this loophole in the law and are now checking all our school staff. As soon as this came to our attention, we acted decisively to ensure the safety of Haringey's pupils."

The council insisted it acted previously in accordance with its legal duties. It did not check Mr Georgiou's past, it says, because he was employed before 1998, when new regulations came into force extending checks beyond those with " substantial" access to children.

Even now, Haringey said, councils were not required to check the criminal records of ancillary staff employed before that date, and had to ask their permission to do so.

The Department for Education and Skills acknowledged that current arrangements regarding access to criminal record checks were " unsatisfactory".

That was why the Home Office was establishing a Criminal Records Bureau, which would enforce the disclosure by those working in sensitive positions of all convictions on record, along with police cautions, warnings or reprimands.

But the DES spokesman said Haringey was wrong on current rules. Guidance in 1995 clarified regulations, he said, indicating that employees such as school cleaners should have been subject to police checks, if employers thought they were likely to come into contact with children.

Additional reporting: George Wright

Criminal checks put on hold