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Juries in child sex offence trials may be told if a defendant has previous convictions for similar offences under proposals announced by home secretary David Blunkett.

The new measures were outlined this week and will also apply to trials for theft offences.

Under the new measures, the "strong presumption" will be that convictions should be revealed to the jury. Currently, evidence of a defendant's bad character is generally inadmissible in court.

The government said the plans would give juries access to information about a defendant's previous convictions and other misconduct where it was relevant and likely to throw new light on a case, without disproportionately prejudicing the fairness of the trial.


But a spokesperson for human rights organisation Liberty said the plans could lead to wrongful convictions. "If you tell a jury with the best will in the world that someone has a string of previous convictions, the overwhelming likelihood is that they will convict," he said.