Public given say over dangerous sex offenders

The public is to be given direct involvement in the management of thousands of paedophiles and other dangerous criminals, David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, will announce next week.

Members of local communities will be allowed to play a part in deciding how dangerous sexual and violent offenders living in their neighbourhoods are monitored and prevented from attacking children.

The scheme is designed to address concerns raised by the parents of the murdered schoolgirl Sarah Payne. But it stops well short of meeting the Paynes' demand for a "Sarah's Law" that would give the public rights of access to the 18,000 names on the Sex Offenders Register.

Under the system to be announced next week, two lay members will be appointed to Multi-Agency Public Protection (Mapp) panels being established in 42 areas covering the whole of England and Wales.

The lay members, who will be recruited through a series of advertisements to be placed this month, will be expected to convey public concerns to professional probation and police officers who will also sit on the panels.

The lay members will be expected to act as watchdogs over the criminal justice professionals, examining their working practices and scrutinising their handling of sensitive cases. They will also be expected to convey local concerns about risks posed by dangerous offenders and to make suggestions on how levels of public protection can be improved.

A government source said: "They will monitor how sexual and violent offenders are being monitored in their communities. They are overseeing the work of the panel."

The lay members will be given some details of the offenders' previous criminal record, the circumstances in which they will be living and their risk of committing further attacks. But they will not be given the real or assumed identities of the offenders or their exact address.

The Home Office will begin the scheme this month by placing advertisements for lay members of the panels in selected regions before an expected national roll-out of the programme.

Successful applicants will be likely to have a record in community work and an understanding of child protection issues. Part of the difficulty for those taking up the new role will be convincing the wider community that they are not themselves part of the criminal justice establishment.

The murder of Sarah Payne in July 2000 provoked a public outcry over the need to give children greater protection against child sex attackers.

In reaction to the murder, a campaign by a national newspaper contributed to a wave of vigilante attacks that led to rioting and innocent people being driven from their homes.

Further concerns emerged during the trial of Sarah's killer, Roy Whiting, who was revealed to be a predatory paedophile who had served a previous sentence for abducting and indecently assaulting a girl.

Days after Whiting was sentenced to life imprisonment last December, Sarah's parents held an hour-long meeting with Mr Blunkett and asked for the public to be granted "controlled" access to the Sex Offenders Register.

The Home Secretary believes such a measure would expose children to greater risk by driving offenders underground, making the job of monitoring their activities more difficult.

In a further attempt to be seen to be more open, the National Probation Service, which was set up last year, will release the numbers of dangerous offenders in each of its 42 districts in its first annual report, due to be published next month.