Sarah Sands trial: Paedophile Michael Pleasted's past revealed

Michael Pleasted's criminal record spanned three decades up to the 1990s

A 32-year-old woman has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years for stabbing to death a neighbour who was a convicted paedophile. During Sarah Sands' trial, it was revealed that Michael Pleasted, 77, had 24 previous convictions for sex offending.

On his estate in east London, council volunteer Michael Pleasted was a high-profile character with a hidden past.

His original name was Robin Moult.

In the late 1990s he was given a flat in a council block overlooking a children's playground and a primary school.

At that time he was under no obligation to tell his council in Newham about his criminal convictions or his change of name.

And, unlike now, neither the police nor the probation service had a duty to share information about him with the council. He was not on the sex offenders register because his crimes pre-dated it.

Pleasted's criminal record, spanning three decades up to the 90s, emerged during Sands' trial.

Teenaged boy

The BBC has learned that police did not uncover his crimes when they carried out a check on him two years before he was killed in November last year.

In July 2012 Newham Council was alerted over his apparent closeness to a teenaged boy.

The teenager and his family were interviewed by a social worker and did not make a complaint, so there was no criminal investigation.

According to the council, Pleasted was asked to undertake an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau check to continue working with young people at the community centre on his estate in Silvertown. He refused.

The council says it contacted police three times over Pleasted and details of his criminal history were not provided.

Pleasted's council role meant he had a "hi-vis" jacket, Silvertown residents said

The Metropolitan Police say they checked for his name on the sex offenders register and did not find it.

The force told the BBC no other database was consulted.

Pleasted's 24 convictions for sex offending - and the different names he had used - were on the Police National Computer (PNC), the Met confirmed.

It said a search on the PNC would have been "inappropriate" because the local authority did not have Pleasted's consent.

A PNC check cannot be conducted without "good cause", and its misuse could lead to disciplinary action, it added.

So Pleasted's past remained a secret and he was allowed to continue as a volunteer steward at the annual council summer shows and concerts.

The council says that, like other stewards, he did not require criminal vetting for this because he did not have unsupervised access to children.

But it says it could have stopped him volunteering if it had been informed he was a convicted paedophile.

Sarah Sands

• Sands had befriended Pleasted. She told police she had tried to help the pensioner and had taken him food

• During her trial, she told the Old Bailey she had drunk two bottles of wine and a small bottle of brandy before visiting Pleasted's flat on 28 November and took a kitchen knife, hammer and wrench with her "for safety"

• She said she was frightened of his behaviour

Silvertown residents described how, because of Pleasted's council role, he had a "hi-vis" jacket which he wore all the time and gave him an official look.

Police uncovered Pleasted's past when he was arrested and charged in 2014 over allegations that he had sexually assaulted two young boys.

Although Newham Council were told of the new charges, the police did not inform the council about his previous convictions because there "was no requirement" to share the data as Pleasted was not a registered sex offender.

But now aware of his record, police and the Crown Prosecution Service unsuccessfully opposed a judge's decision to release Pleasted on bail while he was awaiting trial.

He was allowed to return to the estate subject to conditions, including a ban on children in his flat.

'Horrified and angry'

Sands' knife attack came within a month.

It was three days after his death that the council says it was told the full history of the man it had housed for 16 years.

The BBC has found court reports from the 1970s of early appearances by Robin Moult, Pleasted's original name.

Then in his 30s and living in south-west London, he was described as a sex offender in need of medical help.

Michael Pleasted was stabbed at his flat in Silvertown, east London

In Silvertown, one neighbour, Theresa George, said of Sands: "She shouldn't have taken his life but it should not have got to this stage.

"Why did they not inform us that this person was in the block? Everyone is horrified and very angry."

And mother-of-four Filaz Aday said: "The estate should have been told that there was somebody like this in our area.

"Our children were not safe. Did a man have to die, did children need to be hurt for the truth to come out?"

In a statement, Newham Council said: "No council ever wants to put children at risk and based on information we knew at the time, there was nothing we could have done to prevent this situation from happening."