York newspaper The Press has won a breakthrough in its campaign for a new law over child kidnappers, which would see them automatically put on the Sex Offenders’ Register.

Home Office minister Vernon Coaker has told the paper that his officials have been instructed to review the Sexual Offences Act, and that its suggestion would receive “sympathetic consideration” during the review.

The paper launched its Change It! campaign after covering the case of Terry Delaney, who was jailed for four years after trying to abduct 13-year-old girl.

Judge Paul Hoffman, the honorary recorder of York, told Delaney when sentencing him that he represented a “serious risk to children in the future”.

But because child abduction does not come under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, he could not be put on the Sex Offenders’ Register or banned from working with children.

The paper teamed up with Sara Payne, mother of murdered Sarah Payne, to lobby the Home Office to get the law changed, and launched a petition which was signed by hundreds of readers.

Sara told the paper: “None of this could have happened without the incredible support of the York Press (the media at its best) and we are extremely pleased with Mr Reid’s agreement to make changes in these loopholes in the upcoming review.”

Kevin Booth, editor of The Press, said: “This is great news. It means children everywhere should soon be better protected from the attentions of predators and child abductors who, because of a loophole in the law, cannot at present be registered as sex offenders.

“Ministers should be congratulated on responding so positively to The Press’s Change It! campaign. We now wait to see their promises turned into action.

“What this breakthrough shows above all is that public pressure can work. Change It! is not just a Press campaign. It is a campaign by thousands of readers who have supported us and signed our Change It! petition.

“It shows that when we all pull together in a cause we all believe in, we really can move mountains.”