'PUT MONSTERS WHO ARE CRUEL TO CHILDREN ON A REGISTER'

Campaigner's plan to prevent others enduring same pain as her adopted son

- BY MICHAEL KNOWLES Home Affairs Editor

CHILD abuse monsters should be named on a national register to save lives and spare victims’ suffering, a campaigner has demanded.

Paula Hudgell, whose adopted son Tony was horrifically injured by his birth parents, warned that abusers currently think they can avoid detection. She wants a child cruelty database set up, modelled on the registration of sex offenders, with convicted abusers ordered to update the police if they change their name, move house or start a fresh relationship.

They would also have to tell officers if they spend 12 hours or more in a home with children there and, in some cases, declare planned private contact with youngsters.

Tony, 11, has told Paula of his own determination to protect other children from harm.

Speaking to the Daily Express as we back her crusade, she said: "Sex offenders are absolute monsters.

"But so are people who harm children and break the bones of children. Why should they be treated any differently to a sex offender, if anybody wants to be that cruel and that violent to someone so small, like Tony? "He was five weeks old.

Everything was so tiny and [his parents] were able to twist and break and bend and punch a tiny, tiny baby.

"Why should they be treated less than a sex offender? If we can end up saving even one child then it's totally worth it.

"They could turn around and say about [the cost]...but when you think about how much Tony has cost the system with their prosecution and prison, all his operations and his ongoing care for the rest of his life, it's just extortionate.

"You can't put a figure on a child's life." Tony was just 41 days old when Jody Simpson and her partner Anthony Smith attacked him, causing multiple fractures and dislocations plus blunt trauma to his face.

The battering led to organ failure, toxic shock and sepsis.