Straw moves on paedophile fears

THE HOME Secretary, Jack Straw, has met worried residents of a small village over fears that the child sex killer Robert Oliver may be moved to a "halfway house" there, it emerged yesterday.

Mr Straw told the villagers that Oliver may be sent to Wing, in Rutland, to stay at Wing Grange rehabilitation centre, a Home Office spokesman said yesterday. The spokesman added that if Oliver went there he would be electronically tagged.

The meeting was arranged after the local Tory MP, Alan Duncan, contacted the Home Office over rumours that had been rife in the village.

"The Home Secretary was quite frank with them and said one of the places under consideration was Wing Grange," the spokesman said. "No firm decision has yet been made."

Oliver was jailed for the manslaughter of Jason Swift, a teenage runaway. Released from prison last September, he was hounded out of half a dozen towns before asking Sussex police for protection. He spent four months in a south coast police station for his own protection before going to Blenheim House, a private medium-secure unit in Milton Keynes, in January.

The Home Office spokesman said that if Oliver is moved to Wing it will only be as a temporary measure.