THE authorities in Salem, Massachussets did not have a computer database of alleged and suspected offences back in 1692, but we can imagine how useful they would have found one. It would not just have been 20 citizens executed for witchcraft; it would have been half the town.

Replace the “witch” with “sex offender” and 17th-century Salem has more than a little in common with 21st-century Britain. The murder of Soham schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells was a despicable crime, for which former caretaker Ian Huntley has properly been jailed for life. But the fallout from the Bichard report into the Soham case threatens our liberty by putting us at the mercy of rumour and false allegation.

The nub of Sir Michael Bichard’s report is this: Huntley would have been prevented from taking up his job as a caretaker at Soham and, therefore, from murdering Jessica and Holly, if the Humberside Police had only bothered to keep proper records and been prepared to share those records with potential employers. For his failure to do this, David Westwood, the Chief Constable of Humberside, has been ruined. He has been suspended by the Home Secretary and vilified by the general public.

Yet there was a good reason why Mr Westwood and his staff did not go about telling all and sundry that Huntley was a vicious sex offender. Until the conclusion of the Soham trial in December, Huntley had never been convicted of any sex offence. He had been accused of having sex with four under-age girls, of raping four women and indecently assaulting an 11-year-old girl. But in a free society, the weight of allegations does not equal guilt.

IF HUNTLEY was guilty of these earlier offences, some of which he was charged with and appeared in court over, the failure lies with the Crown Prosecution Service for failing to construct a convincing case against him. Possibly Humberside Police, too, failed in their investigations into the earlier offences. But to suggest that the force should hold and disseminate damning information on citizens merely on the basis of unproven allegations is tantamount to calling for a police state.

Yet this is exactly what the Bichard report does. It demands the setting-up of a national police intelligence system to allow forces to share information on alleged criminals. It also demands that the social services establish their own database of those suspected of child abuse and suggests that the Government, too, creates a register bringing together all known information — substantiated or otherwise — on those who work with children.

It is hard to see how these measures would have prevented Huntley from offending. But even if they did it would be at the terrible cost of ruining the reputations of those falsely accused of sexual offences. Remember the case of Dawn Reed and Christopher Lillie, the Newcastle upon Tyne nursery nurses who were falsely accused of child abuse in 1993? They were acquitted in court after the judge ruled the evidence against them — based on accusations elicited from young children by their parents, there being no physical signs of abuse — to be dangerous. Nevertheless, after the trial Newcastle City Council commissioned a report by four social workers which fantastically accused the nurses of running a paedophile ring and of producing pornographic movies. The pair’s ordeal was only ended by a successful libel trial which concluded, as it happened, the week before the Soham murders.

As a result of the Bichard report, more innocent citizens will be caught up in the maelstrom of rumour and innuendo which blighted the lives of Ms Reed and Mr Lillie. If you want to ruin somebody, just start muttering about his or her inappropriate contact with children. An Englishman used to be innocent until proven guilty. From now on, he is innocent only until someone has a grudge against him.