The Nottingham Evening Post is to challenge the Government about its "dithering" over laws to protect children from paedophiles.

The paper devoted four inside pages and a front page editorial comment to the story in the first two days of its campaign - which has been running since before Roy Whiting murdered eight-year-old Sarah Payne.

Editor Graham Glen said: "The abduction and brutal murder of Sarah Payne was the crime that shocked a nation."

"Yet a full year before evil pervert Roy Whiting took Sarah's life, this newspaper was pressing the Government to find ways of locking away men who were considered to be a continuing danger to youngsters.

"Everybody concedes the current law is hopelessly inadequate for dealing with the worst of these offenders.

"But from a succession of ministers we have heard nothing but waffle and indecision."

Rather than calling for increased prison sentences the Post is arguing for an amended Mental Health Act - under which people can be detained indefinitely in a secure hospital rather than released from prison after a finite term.Child sex offenders can be let out of prison even if they are considered to be a continuing threat.

Graham added: "It's a sickening irony that we are less scrupulous about security for dangerous paedophiles with severe personality disorders… simply because their condition is considered not to be treatable.

"Policy should be should be rooted in one central responsibility - a duty that transcends all others in this especially sensitive debate… and that is the duty to guard innocent children from the menace of violent predators who care nothing for life and health."

The Post has won the backing of local MPs in its fights but has been told by the Government that new laws are still 12 months away.

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