7 Sex beasts on the loose.

UNDER-FIRE John Reid today cancelled a trip to Liverpool as it was revealed seven Merseyside sex offenders were missing.

They were put on the Sex Offences Register by the courts after convictions which could include child abuse and rape.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act revealed police had lost track of more than 300 registered sex offenders nationally.

The Police Federation said it had warned the Home Office three years ago of a loophole in the law, which meant offenders were able to disappear after giving only a vague address.

According to newspaper reports, one paedophile listed his address as "woods".

It is the latest scandal to engulf the Home Secretary's department after last week's news that prisons in England and Wales had reached capacity.

Dr Reid had been expected to make a major speech about the crisis as he toured HMP Kennet, a new jail being set up in an empty wing at Maghull's Ashworth Hospital.

But today officials cancelled the trip and said he needed to stay in Whitehall to concentrate on the department's troubles.

Meanwhile, it has emerged the opening of HMP Kennet, a pounds 19m conversion of disused buildings at Ashworth into a 350-place low security unit, may be delayed.

The ECHO understands a dispute between the Home Office and the Prison Officers' Association means hopes for Kennet to be opened by the spring are increasingly unlikely.

The land being used for the new prison is leased from the Mersey Care NHS Trust.

Buildings already on the site will be converted and a fortified perimeter created to keep the new prison secure.

The Home Secretary warned his department was likely to face more problems and embarrassments in the weeks ahead.

"If you renovate a house, you start by taking the wallpaper off. It is only then you discover more problems. That's what it is like in the Home Office.

"These problems don't leave me beleaguered. If we weren't discovering more, we wouldn't be reforming the Home Office.

Indeed I expect more problems.

"I was sent to the Home Office to do a job. Being Home Secretary is my biggest challenge. But it isn't mission impossible."

His comments came after it emerged on Saturday the Identity and Passport Service failed to impose overseas travel bans on 147 drugs traffickers.

CAPTION(S):

UNDER FIRE: John Reid