RIGHT-WING extremists were described as "despicable" last night for using the case of murdered schoolgirl Sarah Payne to promote their policies.

The BNP has targeted the Cockerton East area of Darlington, where it has a candidate in a forthcoming council by-election.

The party has been putting copies of its newspaper, The Voice of Freedom, through letterboxes.

The front page uses a picture of Sarah, with her surname spelled incorrectly, under a headline saying: Suffer Little Children. It also states that Sarah was the victim of "the liberals' permissive society".

The paper states the reason for a rising tide of brutal crime in Britain and "sickening perversion" is: "The bleeding heart liberals which have spent the last 30 or so years turning our society into one where the 'rights' of criminals and perverts count for more than the right of innocent children and their families."

Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, a former chairman of the Police Superintendents' Association, said: "To use a tragedy such as the murder of Sarah Payne to promote fairly fanatical views is despicable. I condemn it unreservedly."

One Darlington resident, who received the newspaper, said: "They should not be allowed to put this sort of thing through the door.

"To spell the little girl's name wrong is the final insult."

Mike Hartman, of the Tyne and Wear Anti Fascist Association, said: "I am outraged about this. It is disgraceful that they would exploit Sarah and what happened to her to gain publicity for their election campaign.

"It just shows what depths the BNP, which is running the campaign with two convicted football hooligans, will sink to."

David Hines, chairman of the North of England Victims Association, said: "This is disgraceful. This will upset many people who have received it through the door."

Nick Griffin, national chairman of the BNP, said: "We have done nothing which other political parties and newspapers do all the time, they make comments on issues of the day, and this is an issue of the day.

"It was very unfortunate that we misspelled her name, but it was a typing error which also happens to other newspapers."

The BNP is fielding Robert Bruce Bowman in the forthcoming Cockerton East by-election.

Mr Bowman is known to police for having convictions for football-related violence when he used the name Robert Bruce Baines.

His agent has been named as Paul Thompson, of Surtees Street, Darlington, who was convicted in 1998 after some of the worst scenes of hooliganism witnessed in the region.

He was found guilty of attacking football fans in Darlington town centre and was jailed for six months.

Mr Griffin said the convictions were "not relevant"