Worried parents will soon be able to contact Beds Police directly if they think their children may be at risk of exposure to convicted child sex offenders, under a new scheme aimed at protecting youngsters from paedophiles.

The Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme will allow concerned parents, carers, guardians, friends, family members, and neighbours to ask officers for information about anyone who has unsupervised access to a child using a new telephone service.

The force will carry out the relevant checks, and then interview the person who raised the concerns.

If the subject of the check is found to have a history of child sex offences and considered a risk, that information can then be given to the child's parent or the person best placed to protect that child from harm.

Police say malicious calls will be weeded out and that the scheme is not intended to identify those not in a position of trust or care of a child.

The Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme will be launched in Bedfordshire and 19 other counties on Sunday, and is expected to be implemented nationwide in 2011.

To make an application call Beds Police on 01234 841212.

For more on this story see the August 3 issue of the Leighton Buzzard Observer