Stay out of our town

ALISTAIR Pratt - described by police as being an "horrific paedophile of the worst kind" - has been urged to stay out of March following his release from prison.

Pratt, 36, freed from jail last month after serving 19 months of a three-year sentence, is now on the Sex Offenders Register for life, which means his movements must be reported to Cambridgeshire Police.

He is also subject to an extended two-year licence for sex offender treatment.

However, his former neighbours in Bittern Way, March, where he lived with his then girlfriend, are frightened he may come back to live among them.

"He went in as a paedophile and he has come out as a paedophile, and he should be in a street where there are no children," said neighbour Mark Fulcher. Residents spoke out after some claimed to have seen the former MBM Organics buyer re-visiting the house which he gave as his address when he appeared in court in the summer of 2005.

Police sources are adamant Pratt has not returned to live there, and suggest he has severed links with the street.

However, they say they have no right to monitor his movements all the time.

Some neighbours are unconvinced by the police denials and claim Pratt has been seen in Bittern Way since his release.

"My wife has seen him here late at night and I saw him looking out the window at her on Saturday, and I saw the curtains twitching when I was walking out of the front of my house," said Mr Fulcher.

Mr Fulcher and his wife, who have three children, hoped they had seen the last of their neighbour who pleaded guilty to 15 charges of downloading and 13 of distributing indecent photographs.

When police seized his computer equipment, they uncovered almost 1,200 indecent photographs of children.

Many of the 424 most depraved images involved youngsters, aged between five and eight, in sexual situations with adults.

"When he was jailed, I said to the police I do not want him next door," said Mr Fulcher.

"Although it is winter at the moment, my children are outside in the summer, either in the garden or in the paddling pool, wearing their bathing costumes and I do not want him in his upstairs window taking pictures of them running about."

Barry Chapman, who has a three-year-old daughter, believes Pratt no longer lives in their street but may have been there after his release.

"We think he has gone because their curtains are opened and there is nothing to hide. The downstairs curtains had been permanently closed for the past couple of weeks."

Fellow Bittern Way resident Nigel Fuller blames the authorities for Pratt returning to his former home.

He said: "To bring him back here, now there is a day care centre next door, is crazy. He can watch the children quite happily out of his bedroom window.

"It is like putting a child in a candy shop and saying do not touch the sweets. It is not going to happen."

Mr Fuller, who has no children, also fears that, one day, someone like Pratt will have more rights than his victims.

"The balance has gone too far in favour for the criminal and it needs balancing up," he said.

"They are putting people in jail for not paying their Council Tax and letting people like him walk out.

"People say he can be rehabilitated but you cannot be, it is instilled within you, and he will probably have come out 10 times worse because he was mixing with his type of people. When they are with their own kind they are going to talk about it.

"It needs readdressing now and I am afraid this Government is not going to do it.