Local MP Robbie Moore has called for an overhaul of the criminal background check system after it was revealed a murderer spent two years working with children.
Rashid Zaman, 44, worked for a charity visiting schools and children's homes after he was released from prison for killing a man in Halifax in 2001.
A BBC investigation found a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) certificate issued in 2021 did not stop Zaman, from Bradford, from working with children, but a second one issued in 2023 did.
Robbie Moore, Conservative MP for Keighley and Ilkley, said the government needed to "urgently look at strengthening both sentencing policies and safeguarding laws".
The DBS did not tell the BBC why he was allowed to work with children in 2021 and then barred in 2023, as it does not comment on individual cases.
It said serious offences committed after 2006 may lead to someone being automatically barred from working with children, but that offences committed before that time would lead to a discretionary barring investigation.
Robbie Moore MP said:
“It is absolutely outrageous that a man who brutally murdered someone by stabbing them in the head with a screwdriver was ever released from prison in the first place. This was a horrific and cowardly attack, and the idea that a person capable of such a crime could ever be let back into society—let alone be placed in a position where he had access to children and was able to work in a school —is in my view indefensible. A justice system that allows this to happen is failing in its most fundamental duty.
It is entirely unacceptable that the charity failed to act on this information until December 2024 and parents have every right to be outraged. This is a catastrophic safeguarding failure that raises very serious questions about the wider system of DBS checks and the responsibilities of charities that work with vulnerable young people.
We must have a justice system that keeps dangerous criminals behind bars and we must ensure that charities and organisations working with young people are held to the highest possible safeguarding standards, with no loopholes that put children at risk. Ministers must now urgently look at strengthening both sentencing policies and safeguarding laws so that a failure of this magnitude never happens again, and I will be taking this up with the Government as a matter of urgency."
