When we meet in a country pub near her Warwickshire home, I notice Della Wright scanning the room cautiously before taking a seat. It’s a small gesture, easily missed, but it seems at odds with her worldly, authoritative demeanour.

An author, mother of four and activist, she has spent the best part of a decade campaigning for tighter controls on sex offenders and is well used to lobbying MPs for change, so it’s surprising to see Della caught off-guard, wary even.

But behind the confident exterior, she explains, is a crippling fear she has carried since she was six years old, when she was brutally raped and abused by a man who had befriended her mother.

Even though Della’s rapist is now serving a lengthy sentence – and isn’t due for release until 2044 – she has good reason to feel anxious.

Terry Price, as he was known to Della, is a repeat offender who exploited a staggering legal loophole to evade justice and continue his vile crimes for decades.

Once caught, he would change his name by deed poll from his prison cell – then move house on his release, free to prey on children such as Della, whose parents had no idea who he was or his previous convictions.

Most horrifying of all, it is entirely legal for paedophiles and sex offenders to change their names in this way.

‘I just couldn’t believe that these loopholes were well-known, but nobody in authority seemed to care that they exist,’ says Della, now 53, who knows of at least five aliases Price has gone through.

Author and activist Della Wright was brutally raped by a man who had befriended her mother when she was six. Now she is campaigning for tighter controls on sex offenders

Her abuser, Terry Price, had previous sex convictions but was able to conceal his identity by changing his name through a deed poll and starting a new life once he came out of prison

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‘I can’t stand in a queue at a coffee shop without scanning everyone’s faces, looking for a trace of him. I’m constantly in fear I’ll sit next to him on a train or he’s watching me doing my food shop.

‘I have nightmares about him turning up on my doorstep. It’s the reason I don’t really go out alone.’

It was only during the trial of her abuser in 2017 that Della learned about Price’s multiple identities. He was even able to change his name mid-trial, nearly bringing the case to its knees, because the court papers then referred to the wrong name.

Incensed, she launched a campaign in 2018 to bring in a new law – known as Della’s Law – which would mean that convicted sex offenders would not be allowed to change their name without an effective system for tracking name changes.

This horrifying legal loophole has been highlighted this week by the story of paedophile fireman Jason Brown, a convicted sex offender who adopted as many as 20 new names to hide his convictions.

MPs are now under more pressure to put a stop to this practice, which is apparently a well-known trick among sex offenders.

Brown, 50, was able to move around the country, preying on unsuspecting victims and changing his name whenever he was caught.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act in 2023 revealed there were more than 700 sex offenders who had completely vanished from the system – many of whom are believed to have changed their names.

‘When I saw the story about Jason Brown, it turned my stomach,’ says Della. ‘I’ve seen it happen so many times now that it no longer shocks me – although the case was appalling – but I am glad that it has brought renewed attention to the problem. We might finally see something done about this.’

Paedophile fireman Jason Brown changed his name up to 20 times in order to hide his criminal past, using the same legal loophole as Price

Della has joined forces with The Safeguarding Alliance – a multi-disciplinary advice and research firm that works with schools, governments and businesses to ensure safeguarding standards – to fight for a change to the current system that would allow registered sex offenders to be biometrically tracked via their ID, regardless of what name they currently go by.

Earlier this year, the Government announced changes to the system; anyone changing their name is now required to inform the authorities seven days prior to a name change, rather than within three days of making it.

‘That is absolutely not good enough,’ Della says. ‘It doesn’t go anywhere near far enough to protect members of the public. We can’t rely on the honesty and integrity of convicted sex offenders to keep the public safe.’

Born to teen parents in 1973, Della had a tough start to life. She was just five years old when her father went to prison for armed robbery and her mother – who had been through the care system – showed no interest in raising her.

‘She never really wanted to be a mother,’ Della says. ‘Mum would have parties at our house, and one day this man called Terry turned up – he was only 17, but he said he loved kids, and spent the whole night talking to me and my friends instead of the adults.

‘Mum immediately moved him in as a live-in babysitter so she could go out whenever she liked.

‘I have no idea whether Terry Price was the name he was given at birth, or whether he’d already changed it.’

It’s unclear whether Della’s mother, who has since died, was aware that he had already been convicted of committing sex offences against children and was listed as a Schedule One offender, meaning he was likely to pose a risk to children. But while she worked at the local fish and chip shop, Price would take Della along to his probation meetings.

‘Looking back, I can’t believe that nobody questioned why a paedophile was bringing a six-year-old along to probation meetings, but nobody ever said anything, or certainly, they didn’t ever ask me anything,’ she recalls. ‘If I was “good” and sat quietly, he’d take me to the pet shop on the way home or buy me some sweets.’

Price started abusing Della when she had just turned six.

Della was just five years old when her father went to prison and she says her mother showed no interest in raising her. So she hired Price as a live-in babysitter

‘One day, when Mum was out, he came and lay next to me on the sofa while I was watching Top of the Pops, and raped me. He didn’t say a word. I was terrified, so I just kept watching the telly and tried to block everything out.’

Whenever Della’s mother left the house, Price would take the opportunity to rape her daughter.

‘He’d come and sidle up to me like it was the most natural thing in the world,’ she recalls. ‘I was absolutely terrified. I would freeze until he had finished.

‘Nowhere in the house was safe. Afterwards, I’d run and lock myself in the bathroom, scrubbing my underwear clean so that nobody would know what had happened.

‘Whenever my mother left me anywhere, at home, at school, I’d cling to her, screaming for her not to leave me. I didn’t think she would protect me, but I knew that it never happened when she was there.

'I didn’t have the language or understanding to be able to explain to anyone what was happening – I just knew it was bad, and thought it was my fault.’

The abuse continued for two years, only stopping when Price was sent to prison for manslaughter after stabbing a priest, who he claimed had abused him 47 times.

He served 18 months before he was released and Della’s mother welcomed him back into her home.

‘I came home from school one day and found him sitting in our kitchen,’ she says. ‘I was nine, and ran out of the house, screaming that I wouldn’t go home if he was there.’

But it was Price, not her mother, who came looking for Della.

‘I told him I didn’t want it to happen again and, to my surprise, he just said: “OK.” He never touched me again.

‘I fell even deeper into a trap believing the abuse had been my fault. If only I’d said I didn’t want him to rape me when I was six, he wouldn’t have done it – I really thought it was entirely my own fault. He was incredibly manipulative.’

Her mother’s babysitting arrangement with Price ended in 1983 when his girlfriend became pregnant.

‘The last time I saw him, my mother took us to his flat in Birmingham,’ Della says. ‘His girlfriend was there, heavily pregnant, and a social worker was helping them decorate a nursery. He didn’t need us any more because, sickeningly, he was breeding his own victims.’

The last time Della saw Price was in Birmingham with his pregnant girlfriend. She reflects, 'He didn’t need us any more because, sickeningly, he was breeding his own victims'

Just before she turned 15, she told a priest at her Catholic secondary school what had happened – only for him to call her a sinner for talking about such depravity. Ashamed and desperate to escape her mother, Della left home when she was 15, but soon found herself pregnant to a coercive boyfriend.

By 1999, when she was 26, she had managed to get out of the relationship and was a single mother to two children. However, she was determined to change her life for her children’s sake. She trained in counselling and worked helping to rehabilitate offenders (albeit not sex offenders).

By her early 30s, Della was studying health and social policy at the University of Warwick. She was in a new relationship, and had two further children.

However, she suffered horrific flashbacks to her abuse as she gave birth to her fourth child.

‘I was induced and the loss of control, being so vulnerable and in a roomful of men, seemed to bring everything back. People were rushing around me and I just wasn’t mentally in the room; in my head I was in a room with him, and I couldn’t come out of it.

‘I couldn’t close my eyes without seeing him, and it just didn’t stop. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to the doctors, I just bottled it up.’

Della was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), after she attempted suicide when her daughter was six months old.

After several months of counselling, she finally felt stronger, and decided she wanted to see justice done.

Encouraged by the counsellors, Della felt able to finally report her abuse to the police – who initially struggled to locate Price, due to him having changed his name to Robert McEwan.

Price was already in prison, serving a sentence for another sexual offence, and by the time the case came to court in 2017, Della nervously waited to be called to the stand.

But on the day Price should have made his first appearance, Della received a phone call from a police liaison officer telling her the case couldn’t go ahead, because he had changed his name again from his prison cell, meaning the paperwork was in the wrong name.

‘I just collapsed,’ Della recalls. I’d been building to this moment, of seeing him in court, for ten years, and it felt as though he had managed to snatch it from me at the last minute.

‘He just made a complete mockery of the justice system, the police, of me – it was all a joke to him.’

It was six months before the case finally appeared at crown court, in November 2017.

But even when the paperwork had been changed to match Price’s new alias – ‘Mister Mac’ – he was allowed to continue to make a mockery of the legal system by appearing in court via videolink wearing fancy dress.

After several months of counselling, Della finally felt ready to report Price's abuse to the police and, in 2017, she faced him in court. 'I wanted to look him in the eye,' she said

‘He appeared in court via a video screen from prison. I was offered the opportunity to give my evidence from behind a screen, but I wanted to face him. I was so scared, I didn’t really want him to see me now, but I also wanted to look him in the eye,’ Della recalls.

‘I was horrified when he appeared on screen wearing a comedy, big afro-style wig. I have no idea why he was allowed to do it – much less where he managed to get hold of a wig like that in prison. Do they have a props department?

‘It just felt as though he was laughing at me, and the justice system was allowing it. He knew what I looked like now, but I still didn’t really know what he looked like.’

The jury returned a guilty verdict on 13 counts of abuse and Price was sentenced to 22 years in prison – later extended by five years on account of how horrific the abuse had been. Della has been told he is currently not eligible for parole until 2039.

‘I know I was lucky for him to have been given a sentence like that,’ she says. ‘So many of them get away with a slap on the wrist.’

But it was only when Della looked into how Price was able to change his name from prison that she discovered how incredibly easy it was for him to have done so – and how many other sex offenders had done exactly the same.

Under UK law, anyone is allowed to change their name via Unenrolled Deed Poll – and it’s as easy as scribbling their new alias on a piece of paper.

As long as two witnesses sign and declare they are of sound mind, the document is legally binding and can be used to change a person’s identity. This simple declaration can be carried out from prison.

As well as using the process to disrupt legal proceedings, Price – and many other sex offenders like him – use it to help them reoffend undetected on their release from prison.

While offenders who have changed their name are legally required to declare all previous aliases on official paperwork, including DBS checks – required to work with children – the current system relies entirely on the integrity of the applicant to ensure they do so. If an offender does not declare their previous identity, there is very little chance of it being discovered.

When they change their passport and driving licence, there is no biometric tag which links their new identity with their old one. The only piece of identification which links back to an offender’s previous identity is their National Insurance Number, which is currently not required to apply for an enhanced DBS check.

‘I just couldn’t believe that it was allowed,’ Della says. ‘Paedophiles and sex offenders can so easily change their identity and get a job working with children.

‘We have Clare’s Law and Sarah’s Law which are supposed to allow people to check whether someone who has close contact with their child has any convictions for abuse. If they have changed their name, these systems – which are a wonderful idea in theory – are completely redundant.’

As a result, Della fears Price will change his name on release – or worse, that multiple name changes might cause him to get lost in the system, with victim liaison teams unable to tell her whether he is in or out of prison.

‘I had a man message me on Facebook and tell me that he was already out and had been spotted walking around town,’ she reveals.

‘I panicked and contacted the Ministry of Justice, which confirmed he was still behind bars. But how can I feel confident that he hasn’t just changed his name and they can’t keep track of whether he is in or out?

‘Or, of course, there’s the possibility that this stranger is actually him, using another identity, messaging me from prison to frighten me. I don’t know which scenario is worse, really.

‘I’ve accepted that I will live my whole life on tenterhooks, seeing him everywhere I go. But I’m determined that life will not be like that for other children – who we can save from ever having to go through such horrendous abuse by ensuring these monsters are kept away from them.’