As Roy Whiting starts his life sentence for the murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne, Lindsay Jennings looks at whether "Sarah's Law" would work in Britain.

WATCHING the drawn expressions of Sara and Michael Payne, reacting to the jailing of their daughter's killer, it is impossible not to be moved.

Clutching onto each other for support, the world's media hurls questions at them, lighting up their tired faces with the flash of their cameras.

These are people who, for the rest of their lives, will have to live with the agony of knowing their little girl, Sarah, suffered a brutal sexual assault before being suffocated and dumped in a shallow grave.

"Please make sure this stops happening time and time again," pleads Mrs Payne on the steps of Lewes Crown Court. "People are being let out of prison when everybody concerned knows that this is going to happen again. Right now, we have got a lot of work to do and it doesn't stop here. It just begins."

Those passionate words will no doubt renew anger in millions of people across the country, horrified by the gruesome murder of an eight-year-old girl. Understandably desperate to protect their children, they want to seek an outlet for their rage, take action to root out the next Roy Whiting.

But with the News of the World announcing its intention to resume publishing its list of known paedophiles on Sunday, the chances are it won't be long before the action turns into something much more serious, and the vigilante attacks of last summer are headline news again.

The Paynes have campaigned for a change in the law on paedophiles ever since they were robbed of their little girl. The News of the World led demands for a so-called "Sarah's Law" which would allow parents to examine the register of paedophiles.

The concept of the law was based on America's Megan's Law, which commemorates seven-year-old Megan Kanka, who was raped and murdered by a paedophile. Megan was strangled and her body stuffed in a plastic toy chest by neighbour Jesse Timmendequas in the New Jersey suburb of Hamilton Township in 1994.

The US law gives communities the right to know when a sex offender moves into the neighbourhood, and makes a register of sex offenders open for public inspection. Access to the information varies between states. In New Mexico, the names of sex offenders can be downloaded from an Internet website. In other states, only serious sex offenders are put on the data base.

But the question is: would we be able to cope with the responsibility of the information? Looking back at the street protests in Hartlepool and Portsmouth last year, it would appear not.

Following the start of the News of the World's 'name and shame' campaign, there were nightly reports of violence as lynch mobs gathered outside the homes of alleged paedophiles. Fuelled by fear and fury, and armed with lists of supposed sex offenders, neighbours turned vigilante to mete out their own form of justice in the name of an innocent schoolgirl.In Portsmouth, houses were stoned and daubed with abuse, and cars were overturned and burned by crowds of protestors screaming for those accused to be hunted down, driven out, and even to be castrated or executed. In Hartlepool last October, a family were forced to flee their home and move to a safe house after an angry mob had driven them out. Neighbours believed a paedophile was living in the house, but police checks proved nothing.

If the vigilante attacks start again, says Alisdair Gillespie, senior lecturer in criminal justice at Teesside University, it will only drive the paedophiles underground.

"With the sex offenders' register now, the social services, the police and the local authorities meet and they do a risk assessment and they decide what their next step is. If you have a situation where there are vigilantes, thenthe offenders will just disappear and the police and social services will not know where to find them."

And then there are the innocent victims. During the riots, numerous men were wrongly branded paedophiles and, in one case, a paediatrician, a doctor specialising in the treatment of children, was targeted because a mob believed her job title meant she was a paedophile.

The standard way of gaining access to the list of paedophiles in America is through a book of pictures or CD Roms, held in police stations, public libraries and, in some cases, the Internet. Mr Gilliespie says there is also "considerable doubt" as to the accuracy of some of the information on paedophile lists in America. But, despite the negatives, he says "Sarah's Law" could work. It does work in some states in America. But America has quite strong limits on how you use the information, so if you abuse that knowledge you are liable to quite a serious criminal offence, and that, to some degree, has stopped the vigilantes.

"The problem is that people tend to think it's something it isn't - the sex offenders' register is just a tool and Megan's Law is just a tool and there's a danger that people think it's a solution. The other thing is that it stops people remembering that this kind of situation is actually very rare, most child abuse occurs within the family."

AS details came to light yesterday of Roy Whiting's previous conviction - for abducting and sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl in West Sussex on March 4, 1995 - questions were also raised about the effectiveness of the sex offenders' register and what supervision powers were available.

Probation bosses say the tragedy could have been prevented by legislation introduced a year after Whiting was released from jail in 1997. He was supervised for four months after his release but, under the new Crime and Disorder Act, he could have been watched for up to ten years.

But Mr Gillespie says judges do not use these powers often enough. He says, in addition to extended supervision orders, the sexual offending sentences need an overhaul.

"At the moment, you can get ten years in jail for taking a picture of a topless 14-year-old but, for having sex with her, you would only get two years. It shows you the absurdity of the law," he says.

Former Home Secretary Jack Straw had previously rejected demands for a public register but it remains to be seen what his successor, David Blunkett, makes of the renewed campaign. As a concession, Jack Straw said police forces would publish the number of sex offenders in their area, the risks they posed and the precautions that had been taken. They would not, however, reveal any names. The first publication of these figures is due to take place next summer.

Mr Straw also tightened controls on paedophiles, introducing a five-year jail term for breaching court orders designed to keep them away from past victims or certain areas. These measures came into force in June. After yesterday's verdict, Home Office Minister Beverley Hughes said the Government would use the case to learn lessons about protecting the public.

But whether it will be enough for the millions of people who can taste the anger at the thought of Roy Whiting's evil acts, remains to be seen.

lDue to unforseen circumstances, Ashok Kumar's article on faith schools will now run at a later date