The British government promised tougher laws against paedophiles yesterday but said lists of offenders must remain under police control after a wave of vigilante attacks prompted by the News of the World "name and shame" campaign.
The Home Office Minister, Mr Paul Boateng, said the government would strengthen laws protecting children from sexual abuse in the wake of the campaign, which followed the murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne last month. But he rejected calls for a public register of paedophiles.
"The decisions about whether people are told names and addresses are not matters for newspapers, they are not matters for ministers, they are matters for police and the probation service," Mr Boateng said. The parents of the schoolgirl Sarah have been campaigning for a public register and tougher child sex abuse laws.
Their campaign was championed by the top-selling Sunday tabloid, which printed the names and pictures of dozens of paedophiles across the country. Police condemned the move, which prompted a wave of vigilante attacks.
"The government's concern has to be the protection and welfare of children and the maintenance of public order. The News of the World approach in naming and shaming threatened both," said Mr Boateng.
The newspaper suspended its campaign yesterday, saying it had created an unstoppable momentum for harsher sentences for offenders and a right for parents to see lists of abusers. Police and children's charities said it had helped drive offenders underground and make them harder to trace.
Public outrage has been such that angry mobs have attacked a number of people - some of them mistakenly - since the paper started its drive.
In the southern city of Portsmouth, a riot broke out on Thursday when angry people looking for a paedophile besieged a house, throwing stones, breaking windows and overturning cars.
The tabloid said Sarah's parents, Sara and Michael, who thanked readers for their support, planned to meet the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, when he returned from holiday.