Doncaster is home to the highest number of registered sex offenders per head of population in South Yorkshire, figures have revealed.

Last year, 242 sex attackers including paedophiles were recorded as living in Doncaster which amounted to 0.84 per thousand residents based on latest census population figures.

The town has more than twice the number of registered offenders as Barnsley where last year 118 people were made to sign the sex offenders' register.

The register contains the details of anyone convicted, cautioned or released from prison for sexual offences against children or adults since 1997 when it was set up, although the length of time people stay on it depends on their sentence.

It allows police to monitor the movements and activities of offenders.
Sheffield has 308 registered sex offenders and Rotherham has 162 but this equates to only 0.6 and 0.65 offenders per 1,000 residents respectively.

Doncaster also has Yorkshire's second highest number of offenders in relation to population density behind Hull where there are 1.09 offenders per thousand people.

The figures were released by Home Office minister Vernon Coaker in response to a parliamentary question from MP Shailesh Vara.
One reason suggested for Doncaster's high number of registrants is the three prisons in the borough.

Speaking last year, Jack Tarr, spokesman for South Yorkshire Probation Area said: "In any location where there is a prison, people tend to settle nearby."

"One issue you'll find with prisoners is that when they are given a prison term they'll often lose their accommodation so on release they find themselves of no fixed abode."

Once released, dangerous offenders are managed by the South Yorkshire Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) under varying degrees of surveillance according to the risk they are thought to pose.

To monitor offenders in the community, many are temporarily housed in premises approved by the Probation Service which includes a bail hostel in central Doncaster.

However, sex offenders have been known to abscond from their accommodation, breaching the terms of their release.

Panic broke out in Doncaster two years ago when convicted paedophile Karlos Bringins went on the run from a community home in Hexthorpe run by Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust while on an unescorted shopping trip.

Bringins, then 54, was missing for six days but police did not make his risk factor public for four days.
He was finally caught in Bradford and placed in secure accommodation outside the borough.

He had originally been sent to Rampton in 1973 for an attack on a seven-year-old boy and had been in the care of the authorities ever since.
His 24-hour supervision order had been downgraded shortly before to prepare him for eventual release.