Paedophile campaign infiltrated

NEO-FASCIST activists are exploiting public concern about convicted paedophiles being released unsupervised into the community by infiltrating parents' pressure groups.

Members of extreme right-wing organisations, including the British National Party, the British arm of the Ku Klux Klan and the National Democrats (a breakaway faction of the National Front), have become involved with unsuspecting parents seeking tougher laws.

The BNP has distributed leaflets featuring pictures of murdered children which ask for donations for the party, call for paedophiles to be hanged and name William Hague as one of the MPs whose vote to reduce the homosexual age of consent to 16 is "tacit approval to perverts who prey on young boys".

One example involves the People Power movement based in East London, set up after the horrific murder of nine-year-old Daniel Handley in l995.

The group, campaigning for tougher measures against convicted child sex offenders, has obtained support from public figures including former world boxing champion Frank Bruno and former England football manager Terry Venables. It has presented a petition with 300,000 names at Downing Street.

People Power's literature is produced by Ian Anderson, who runs a printing business in Dagenham, Essex. Mr Anderson is a former chairman of the National Front and is now a leader of the National Democrats. In the past, he has produced a book which denies the Jewish Holocaust ever took place.

Mr Anderson attended a People Power Downing Street protest in January with other extreme right wingers, including Paul Ballard of the BNP and Bill Binding, exposed by the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight as a leader of the British branch of the Ku Klux Klan and a former BNP parliamentary candidate.

According to sources in the extreme right, a plan to hand out extreme right-wing literature was abandoned when Curtis Sliwa, leader of the Guardian Angels vigilante group, turned up with members, some of whom were non- white.

People Power was launched by housewives Gill Turner and Cathy Frost after the killing of Daniel Handley. Both women knew his mother, Maxine. The group has branches in the North and Midlands and contacts with US pressure groups.

Ms Turner said: " We are not vigilantes. We are trying to get the Government to recognise the worry of the common people. We want them to introduce electronic tagging for paedophiles."

Yesterday, she denied knowledge of Mr Anderson's politics but said there could be an emergency meeting of the group to discuss the matter.