London - A network of "safe houses" for children is to be set up in a village where a serial paedophile is returning from prison. Mr Rhys Hughes (65) is going back to his home in Sonning Common, near Reading, next month after serving six years of a 10-year term for the rape and buggery of eight children and indecent assault on another who still lives in the village.
A compulsive paedophile, Mr Hughes was jailed in 1992 after admitting a 30-year history of abusing male and female victims since 1957. He refused to accept treatment while in prison. Police and probation officers admit they are powerless to stop the retired gardener, who insists he will come back to live at his house in two weeks.
Much of the concern in the village has focused on the welfare of an 11-year-old girl raped by Hughes at the age of four, who still lives in Sonning Common with her family.