Lancashire's regional press was praised at a top-level conference for its coverage of sex offenders after their release from jail.

The Princess Royal heard that reporting of Sex Offender Orders in the county had been "sensible and responsible".

Princess Anne was attending a workshop held as part of Veto on Violence, the first national conference on violent crime. Senior police officers from all over the UK were among 350 delegates at the event in Nottingham.

Gillian Radcliffe, corporate communications manager for Lancashire Constabulary and chairman of the Association of Police Public Relations Officers, contrasted Lancashire's approach with the "hysteria" generated by the News of the World's name-and-shame campaign over paedophiles.

People who have been ordered to sign the sex offenders' register are assessed, after their release from jail, by the police and probation service to see if they pose a continuing danger. A court can then be asked to make a Sex Offender Order restricting their movements and behaviour.

Ms Radcliffe said this gave "real potential for public hysteria" but in Lancashire, the police and probation service called a meeting with regional editors, explained the assessment process and revealed how many high-risk offenders were living in the community.

The result was a written agreement, signed by more than 50 editors. To read it, click here.

"We negotiated with them and said 'how can we work together to try to serve the public interest?'

"Our starting point was 'you have every right to go to court and report, but what we want is for you to make well-informed editorial decisions'" she said.

In the vast majority of cases since then, the police had briefed the media in advance of hearings.

Ms Radcliffe said the press would have missed some of the cases completely but if the police had not talked to them, there would have been a risk of "uncontrolled" coverage.

"What we've asked for to be held back has been the absolute minimum and what we've usually asked for is that they don't publish the current address of the person in the order. On every occasion, that's been adhered to.

"Really, all we've signed up to is dialogue, but we've had very sensible and responsible reporting."

She added: "Media editors still feel that they are free to exercise their rights to publish what they feel is appropriate and we are able to use our influence to ensure that the things we really don't want to end up on the newspapers or on television don't appear, and so far we haven't been let down."

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