CHILDREN'S charities have criticised the Archbishop of Canterbury after he defended the work of a children's author jailed for sexually abusing young fans.

William Mayne, 77, was jailed for two-and-a-half years last May by Teesside Crown Court after he admitted 11 charges of indecent assaults on young girls between 1960 and 1970.

The court heard that the award-winning author from Thornton Rust, near Leyburn, North Yorkshire, who has written more than 100 children's books, used his fame to lure young fans to his home, where he molested them.

The Right Reverend Rowan Williams told an audience at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival on Friday that the conviction did not mean he would stop recommending Mayne's work.

The Archbishop read Mayne's A Game of Dark when he was a child and described the book as extraordinary.

He said: "Yes, it would colour me if I read it now, knowing what has happened, yet a writer is not the sum of his activities.

"We would be in trouble with a lot of authors if their lives were what we judged."

Children's charities have hit out at the comments made by the father-of-three.

Michelle Elliott, director of child safety group Kidscape, said: "I am shocked anyone would say we should be non-judgemental about the works of a man who has abused children, and I am particularly appalled that this is coming from a man of God.

"I wouldn't touch Mayne's books with a barge-pole.

"Books are the sum of you as a person. To divorce the writings of an author from the author himself is impossible."

Lizzie Emmett, communications manager for the NSPCC in the North-East and North Yorkshire, said: "Our hearts go out to the child victims of this man, and we hope that the debate does not bring any additional pain and suffering to them."

Mayne's crimes came to light after a woman approached police in 1999.

He had won the Guardian Children's Fiction Award in 1993.

Mayne's publisher, Hodder, has not released any of his novels since his conviction.