The 12-year-old boy stands at the bus stop with his two friends holding up a hand-written sign scrawled across a large piece of cardboard. The message, in capitals and coloured with felt-tip pen, reads: "Honk if you want the paedophiles out. Paedophiles out."

A few streets away, a resident of the Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth quickly shuts her front door; she doesn't want to talk about the family next door who fled their home in fear a few days ago.

Children, their parents and even those who wanted to hide behind their doors on the Paulsgrove estate have been drawn into a campaign to hunt down and rid the area of suspected paedophiles. After seven nights of protests that turned the estate into what one British newspaper described as "a crucible of hatred and mutual suspicion", the campaign was suspended on Thursday.

What had gone before was a witch hunt. The protesters, mainly women and children, had roamed the streets of Paulsgrove searching for the homes of people they suspected were paedophiles. It was mob rule, and the mob decided which homes should have their windows broken and which family should be targeted, often acting on little more than rumour and suspicion.

As she sat with two of her friends on the doorstep of a house in Lowestoft Road, a teenage girl, who did not want to be named, spoke of her fear that her family would be targeted by the protesters. Two families on the road were forced to move out after the protesters gathered outside their homes and the girl said a group of local boys had told her that her family was next on the list.

"They think we've got someone in the family who's a paedophile," she said. "We haven't. I'm scared and we don't know what's going to happen now."

By the time the protests had ended, five innocent families had been forced to flee their homes. Although the marches are over, in Paulsgrove the fear remains, and neighbour is afraid of neighbour.

The leaders of the anti-paedophile protests, the Peaceful Protesters of Paulsgrove (PPP), called off the marches after talks on Thursday with Hampshire Police and the leaders of Portsmouth City Council. The PPP said they would ask the residents to decide whether the protest should be halted and only then would they hand over to police their list of 20 suspected paedophiles living in Paulsgrove.

The city council said it would cross-reference the names with police records and offer any sex offenders, or indeed those who were wrongly accused, alternative accommodation. It was clear, however, that the protesters would not stand aside without imposing a few conditions. After the meeting Mr Barry Pettinger, a spokesman for the PPP, made it clear that the protesters would have the final word:

"This is a victory of sorts but we have not got what we wanted. We started this to be sure that every paedophile, every name on our list, would no longer be on the estate. But that may not be possible because of the laws of this land. We have an agreement with the council and the police and it must be honoured, otherwise the banners will be brought out again and the marches started again."

The mob rule in Paulsgrove, and in Manchester and Plymouth where suspected paedophiles have been hounded out of their homes, could not go unchallenged. As the self-styled foot soldiers of the News of the World's campaign to "name and shame" convicted paedophiles, they provoked national debate.

However, they also provoked condemnation from the Home Office, the Association of Chief Police Officers and probation officers. And the parents of Sarah Payne, whose murder prompted the News of the World campaign, also joined the appeal to end the violence.

And yet the Paulsgrove protesters have tapped into the fears of many people in Britain who suspect they may be living next to a paedophile. If they have achieved anything it is that they have focused national attention on the issue of whether parents should have "controlled access" to information about sex offenders living in their area.

It has also been pointed out that if their claim that Paulsgrove has been used as a "dumping ground" for paedophiles is correct, then they had every right to be angry when they were denied information about sex offenders under current laws.

But one Portsmouth resident, Mr Joe Baker, defended mob rule, saying it was a symptom of a British government that refused to listen.

"What else can people do? There's no point in writing thousands of letters and sending them to Downing Street. They don't even read them. They go straight in the bin."

Asked why the protest had begun, he explained: "There have been other murders. But I think with the murder of Sarah Payne people just said `enough is enough' and they couldn't stand by any more."

Ultimately, the tactics of mob rule - burning, stone-throwing and malicious telephone calls - drive paedophiles underground where the police cannot monitor them. As Victor Burnett, a convicted paedophile who was forced to leave his home in Paulsgrove explained in an interview with the Guardian yesterday: "When the police know where the offenders are there is some measure of control, but if they go underground, the authorities will never see them. Not until they offend again, that is. Paedophiles who disappear from one estate will turn up on another."

This is the issue facing the police, politicians and the probation service. They are being asked to balance the demands of parents to have access to information about paedophiles living in their area, and the protection of children, with the rights of offenders who have served their sentences to rebuild their lives.

There are difficulties on both sides. The Home Office has refused to introduce a US-style "Megan's Law" that would give the public automatic access to the names and addresses of convicted sex offenders. Last week the Home Office Minister, Mr Paul Boateng, said it was a matter for the police and probation services to control access to information about paedophiles, not ministers.

But the Home Office is conducting a review of paedophile laws and the Sex Offenders' Register, introduced by police forces in England and Wales in 1997. In 1993 independent research estimated there were 110,000 adults in the UK who had been convicted of sexual offences against children, although some of the offences were committed when the offenders themselves were children.

There are just over 12,000 people on the Sex Offenders' Register and all sex offenders must lodge their name and address with local police within 14 days of being released from prison. Anyone imprisoned for 30 months or more is required to register for life. And those with sentences of six months to 30 months will remain on the register for 10 years.

Ministers are considering whether the 14-day registration period should be reduced to 48 hours and whether to introduce indefinite sentences for sex offenders with severe personality disorders and those who pose a threat to children. Sex offenders and probation officers who have spoken out this week have suggested paedophiles could be housed in secure accommodation when released from prison. But there is the fear that bail houses, or estates, could be turned into ghettoes.

We can only wait and see whether these measures, if they are adopted, will go far enough to reduce tensions in Paulsgrove and elsewhere in Britain.