Nikolaus Pevsner’s insistence on an element of historical rigour in the new qualification led to the urgent

Nikolaus Pevsner’s insistence on an element of historical rigour in the new qualification led to the urgent need for suitable study materials and it fell to Brill to set up the new learning resource from scratch, which he did with such civilised awareness that a small suburban art school became the owner not just of the standard undergraduate texts but of something approaching a gentleman’s library. This feat earned him the post of Tutor-Librarian at the Royal College of Art.For all his public work Hans Brill was a private, even solitary spirit. How many would celebrate their 60th birthday by walking solo from Blackheath to Australia? Nor did his daring diminish with the years. When nearing 70 he was still capable of swimming across the lagoon from the Lido to Venice in emulation of Byron (dodging the vaporetti and being arrested on arrival for his pains). As one of his students at the RCA put it, “When Hans was around, anything was possible”.He had just fought off cancer when he was killed in a car accident in France. Hans leaves a widow, Sue, whom he met and married after a lightning courtship when he was still a young naval officer in Sicily.Peter Lloyd-Jones. The Government was eager to emphasise the toughness of the Home Office review of the 1997 Sex Offenders Act, published yesterday.

The Government was eager to emphasise the toughness of the Home Office review of the 1997 Sex Offenders Act, published yesterday. Following the ignorant mouthings that were exposed by the contentious Brass Eye programme on Channel 4, we must hope that this review will bring us back to the realm of common sense A total of 15,000 names are on the sex offenders’ register. That number will now expand, through a number of new measures (though not dramatically; consensual sex between teenagers will, rightly, no longer be a reason to be placed on the register). The range of offences requiring registration will be enlarged. Burglary with intent to rape will require automatic registration.

British citizens convicted of sex offences overseas will for the first time be subject to the same registration requirements as offenders here. Registered sex offenders must inform the police of a change of address within eight days; failure to do so can be punished with a jail sentence of up to five years.
It is a relief to hear that the review has not acceded to the vociferous demands of tabloid newspapers for the public access to details of the register – despite a statement from the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, in which he publicly contemplated such a change. That was a disastrous signal, and we hope it will not be heard again. The review – set up a year before Mr Blunkett came into office – concludes that such access is “likely to hinder rather than help measures to protect children”.

A publicly accessible register would, as we saw with the News of the World’s loathsome campaign, be little more than a licence for lawless vigilantes. Public access to the register can also make the register itself less effective. Under the existing system, 97 per cent of offenders comply with requirements; if names on the list are publicly accessible, offenders have a (dangerous) incentive not to register.Perhaps the most important weakness of these proposals is the implication – if only by omission – that the main threat faced by victims of sexual abuse is from outsiders. The bitter truth is that, too often, offences are committed by relatives.