'Everyone has a right to know my son-in-law is a pervert'

A grandmother has travelled thousands of miles in what is perhaps the ultimate "name and shame" campaign to warn a community that her former son-in-law - a convicted child sex offender - is about to be released from prison.

A grandmother has travelled thousands of miles in what is perhaps the ultimate "name and shame" campaign to warn a community that her former son-in-law - a convicted child sex offender - is about to be released from prison.

Gloria Gerrity, 59, flew from Canada last week and trudged the streets of Walton, near Stone, Staffordshire, pasting up posters of Peter Robb, a music teacher who was sentenced to five years for sexually abusing a boy and girl.

As fast as she put up the A4-sized posters, bearing the word "Warning!" with a picture of Robb and details of his crimes, the police, who are about to be given new powers by the Government to track paedophiles, tore them down. But she had made her point and she had no regrets.

"As far as we were concerned, five years wasn't enough in the first place," she said. "When I heard he was being released two and a half years early - on good behaviour, of all things - I decided I simply had to warn people.

"He's very charismatic, charming and plausible. I didn't want to give him the chance to abuse again."

Robb was arrested by police in 1997 after threatening Mrs Gerrity's daughter, Debbie. She had left him earlier because their relationship had become increasingly abusive; she is 40, he is more than 20 years older. According to Mrs Gerrity, the police were called after Robb threatened Debbie with a gun. Although police will not confirm details, when Robb's home in Tilling Drive was raided, a gun was recovered and a number of videotapes were seized.

On one of the tapes, Robb could be seen abusing a young boy known to the family.

Debbie, who is under contract to give her story to a women's magazine, has since divorced him. She has changed her name and moved to a secret location with her four children (none of which is his).

"I have heard all the arguments about naming and shaming these perverts and them going underground, but I have no regrets," said Mrs Gerrity, in a reference to the News of the World's controversial campaign to identify paedophiles after the recent murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne.

"I grew up in this area and I believe the community has a right to know what a monster is in their midst."

Mrs Gerrity, who lives in Burlington, Ontario, to be close to the rest of her family of four children and 10 grandchildren, is returning to Canada tomorrow, but she is leaving behind some posters in the hope that somebody else will continue her crusade.

Yesterday, in Tilling Drive, a smart row of neat, middle-class houses, it seemed her wish would be fulfilled. Robb's house - a large detached propertythat faces an infants' school, a middle school and their playing fields - was locked up. A nervous woman who arrived at the property refused to be interviewed. But neighbours had plenty to say.

Peter Moss, 34, lives next door with his wife, Catherine, and their three children, aged one, nine and five. When he moved in two years ago, Robb was already in prison - but no one had told him. "We were furious that the estate agent didn't tell us," he said. "Apart from the obvious concerns we have over our children, the value of the property has been affected. If he comes out and returns here, there is no way we could ever sell the place - especially to people with kids.

"Everyone has the right to a home but, when you do something as evil as he has, I believe you forfeit that right.

"I think Mrs Gerrity's poster campaign was a good thing, and I don't doubt that when she's gone someone else will carry on with it."

Further up the road, however, Jan Brumby wasn't convinced. "I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing," she said. "On the one hand, I think people have a right to know about him. He was a music teacher and you used to see a procession of children going in there ...

"But on the other hand, it can lead to vigilantes taking matters into their own hands and making mistakes, putting other residents in danger. A couple of days after Robb was sent to prison, someone threw black paint all over our white Mercedes. He lived at number 33; we live at 23. We believe the paint was meant for him, but it could have been much worse."

Robb's solicitor has said his client has no intention of returning to Walton when he is released later this week. But if he does, he is unlikely to see pictures of himself all over town. Inspector Mark Riley, of Staffordshire police, said: "We don't have any specific right to pull down posters if people continue to put them up, but we would remove them on the general reasons of public safety and crime prevention.

"We took down the last batch because we had several phone calls from men who said they were concerned that the picture on the posters looked like them. And in this particular climate, that could lead to very serious consequences."