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The Sensible Sentencing Trust is being threatened with court action over its list of convicted paedophiles.
Spokesman Garth McVicar said he has had four threats from the lawyers of offenders named on the list, threatening to sue for a breach of human rights.
But Mr McVicar claims the
database, which holds more than 500 names of paedophiles and sex offenders, has shown its value in potentially saving two girls from being abused.
Mr McVicar said one mother told him she had taken in a boarder and was going to let him baby-sit her seven and nine-year-old daughters when she saw the man's name on the list.
Mr McVicar said the story is proof of why his group will not remove the list without a fight and added: "We're now achieving what we set out to achieve."
The New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties labelled the database "short-sighted".
Council chairman Michael Bott said he was sympathetic to the Sensible Sentencing Trust's goals but the database "fans the flames of illogical fright", Mr Bott said.
"It could foster a notion of lynch mob mentality and the real risk is the wrong person could be identified," he said.
He said the council does not want to see the database banned because it supports the free expression of ideas but he said if sex offenders are forced to continually move, it will affect their rehabilitation and make it harder for police to monitor them.
He said sex offenders are amongst the lowest recidivist offenders.
Wellington lawyer John Edwards, who specialises in information and privacy, said the trust is vulnerable to legal action
He said the law was still evolving in this area and it elicits information from the public and that the issue was both "legal and ethical".
He said if sex offenders who have done their time are named then their rehabilitation could be affected and they could be pushed underground.
"It can also provoke vigilantes and people have been mis-identified as sex offenders, and there have been deaths, although not in New Zealand," Mr Edwards said.
Mr McVicar said the trust receives phone calls and press clippings from victims but they don't take them as gospel.
"We have to sight the documents," he said.
Mr McVicar said there was a mistake made after a newspaper "got it wrong".
"We changed it immediately and there was an apology on the site," he said.
He said the database does not breach anyone's human rights and those listed on it and should pay the price for their offending.
"Convicted criminals need to live with it and be accountable. We're asking for victim's safety to be put first," Mr McVicar said.
- with NEWSTALK ZB
