Barnardo's wants satellite tracking of sex offenders

LONDON, Nov 15 (Reuters) Sex offenders in Britain should be tracked by satellite and subjected to regular lie detector tests to help protect children's safety, the Barnardo's children's charity said.

The charity's chief executive Martin Nary said electronic tagging and polygraph measures would be more effective than any introduction of a so-called Sarah's Law -- where the authorities would inform parents when known sex offenders move into the local community.

Nary said a pilot trial using volunteers had shown offenders offer up more information about where they have been and what they have been doing when they are interviewed under polygraphs.

''They compel offenders to tell much more of what they have been doing. Because lie detectors can be so effective they have to tell the truth, whether they have been lurking outside a school for example,'' Nary told BBC radio yesterday.

Speaking as the charity publishes a new report, ''A Risk Too Far?'' Nary said the probation service needed all the help it could get in keeping up with those individuals it must supervise after they have been released from jail.

''For those people who are genuinely very dangerous, satellite technology -- used successfully in Florida, just introduced into Iowa -- could make a real difference.'' Nary said he understood the desire for a Sarah's Law, but said the legislation would be counter productive.

He said experience in the United States suggested similar legislation has made it harder to manage sex offenders once they are released. ''An introduction of a Sarah's Law in the UK would put children at greater danger not less danger.'' Campaigners in Britain have been pushing for Sarah's Law -- a version of the controversial Megan's Law in the United States -- ever since eight-year-old Sarah Payne was murdered in 2000.

The little girl was snatched from a cornfield in West Sussex while playing with her brothers and sisters. Her killer was Roy Whiting who had a previous conviction for the abduction and molestation of a nine-year-old girl just five years earlier.

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