INQUIRIES into historic sexual and physical abuse, including two in Lancashire, have been criticised for "ruining people's lives".

The Home Affairs Committee investigated dozens of probes nationwide including two by Lancashire Police.

Operation Care was led by Merseyside Police Authority and ran from November 1998 to March 2000. Operation Nevada, instigated by Lancashire Police, began in July 2000 and is still continuing.

Last Friday former Burnley schoolteacher Nicholas Hoyle was jailed for two years and eight months for abusing young boys.

His arrest came from the Operation Nevada inquiry.

The Home Affairs Committee rejected a ban on such probes but called for tighter safeguards to prevent what it branded "a new genre of miscarriages of justice''.

Committee chairman Chris Mullin, MP for Sunderland South, said: "No one wishes to minimise the suffering of victims of abuse or the damage that it can do to their lives, but the plain fact in that many police trawls are not generating evidence of sufficient quality to satisfy the burden of proof.

"I am in no doubt that a number of innocent people have been convicted and that many other innocent people, who have not been convicted, have had their lives ruined.''

A memo from Lancashire County Council Social Services Directorate identifies the two inquiries as Operation Care and Operation Nevada and defends them but says lessons have been learned.

It says that "trawling'' is not worthwhile for allegations over 25 years old and says many alleged perpetrators were not prosecuted even though there were civil proceedings for compensation under way. Only serious allegations were pursued and while time limits might be worthwhile but: "Some alleged perpetrators may have continued in their abuse and be a risk now''.

The directorate's evidence said that victims may find it embarrassing to disclose historic abuse and agrees that new guidelines on similar fact evidence may be needed.