A GROUP of parents have set up a child protection panel to demand a change in the law on sex offenders.

Residents in Shadsworth, Blackburn, decided to take action after revelations that a 'high risk' sex offender was living on their doorstep without their knowledge.

The group, calling themselves Parents Protecting Children, will form a committee to lobby MPs for a change in the law.

They want to ensure that when known sex offenders are released from prison they are monitored for the rest of their lives.

The call follows news that Malcolm Ball, 60, who had told police he would kill his next victim, lived in a bedsit at Shadsworth House for three weeks, just a short walk from five schools and two playgrounds.

Ball had committed sexual assaults on a seven-year-old girl and her eight-year-old brother in Bournemouth in 1997 and had recently been released from prison.

He was moved away from the area by police after an expos in a Sunday newspaper but residents voiced their anger at a meeting chaired by police.

Some concerned parents think the current system makes it too easy for paedophiles to go underground or commit further offences well before police or probation staff realise it.

Dena Marchese, a Shadsworth parent involved with the panel, said: "We think that anyone committing a serious sexual offence against a child should be on licence for life so that the police will then be able to monitor them.

"This is about being given the choice to protect children more than we already do." Julie Skorupka, from children's charity Barnardo's on Arran Avenue, added:You can move a known paedophile from Shadsworth but it does not solve the problem or make people feel any safer."

The group will hold another meeting at Shadsworth Community Centre on December 1 between 7pm and 9pm.