Pervert Rhys Hughes could be locked up rather than return to the Oxfordshire village where he abused children for 30 years.

Speculation is growing that Hughes - due for release from jail on Monday - has agreed to go into a medium-secure unit.

Police and social workers have warned him he could be the victim of vigilante attacks if he goes back to Sonning Common.

A 15-year-old girl, whom he abused ten years ago, still lives in the village, where safe houses have been set up for children who are frightened of seeing Hughes.

The 65-year-old has served six years of a ten-year sentence for sexual attacks on nine boys and girls between 1957 and 1991.

He cannot be forced to accept supervision because he was jailed before the introduction of the 1991 Criminal Justice Act, but a place in a unit has been found for him in a medium-secure unit.

Probation service spokesman Mike Biddulph said: "Secure accommodation is what we have all been working for.

"It would be in everybody's interest, including his own. But we also have to work on the basis that he will do what he earlier said he would do and go back to his own home."

Meanwhile, members of the British National Party distributed 2,500 leaflets in the village at the weekend with fears growing daily of an explosion of violence there.

The far-right activists, the only political party who advocate life sentences and the restoration of capital punishment, are protesting and campaigning against Hughes's release.

Police and local politicians have been appealing for calm with the child rapist expected to be released from prison on September 14.

A spokesman said: "We received a lot of support from locals, who are furious with the Government's soft measures against paedophiles."

But Chief Insp Shaun Morley, of Thames Valley Police, said: "We are aware that two people were delivering leaflets through doors over the weekend.

"Actions like this could ultimately make the situation worse, which is something nobody in the village wants to see."

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