Sex offender check scheme launched

Parents in four areas of England will be able to check under a pilot scheme launched yesterday, whether new partners or other people with significant access to their children are sex offenders.

The initiative allows police and probation services to disclose some information to families about people who have unsupervised contact with their children.

But the scheme, which will operate in Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Cleveland and Warwickshire, does not go as far as the so-called "Megan's Law" in the United States which allows local identification of offenders.