SCORES of dangerous criminals are not being checked on quickly enough by probation officers when they get released from prison in Oxfordshire, new figures show.

Thames Valley's branch of the Probation Service failed to assess more than half of its high-risk ex-convicts within a week of them getting out of jail.

It represents the second worst performance of any probation service in the country.

The Government has told it that local officials should be completing their checks within a week in 90 per cent of cases yet it is only 42 per cent.

And this week Marjorie Binningsley whose father murdered a woman after fleeing a bail hostel said she feared that the probation service had learned nothing from its failings.

It was a condition of his parole that PhilipHuggins, released six years into an 11-year sentence for robbery and kidnap, should stay at the hostel but nothing was done.

Huggins, pictured, 49, stabbed to death 53-year-old Cecilia Nightingale in her flat in Northfield Close, Littlemore. He is now serving life for her murder.

Mrs Binningsley, who tipped off police after the murder, said: "My father was on the run for two weeks and no one seemed to care where he was.

"He was allowed to roam the streets. Somebody wasn't doing their job properly.

"It's disgraceful the probation service are not doing their job.

"It's in their job description to know where high-risk offenders are and what they doing."

Between August 2005 and March 2006, the Thames Valley branch of the probation service took longer than a working week to process 59 out of 141 high-risk offenders.

Only the branch of the probation service in Hertfordshire was worse, with just 14 per cent.

Staff also failed a separate target of completing 90 per cent of reports on prolific and other priority offenders within five days of either being released from prison or embarking on a community sentence like unpaid work in the community or rehabilitation orders.

It managed to do this in only 49 per cent of cases 47 out of 95.

Paul Gillbard, Thames Valley Probation Service director of offender management, said by April the service was completing assessments on 80 per cent of high-risk offenders and 91 per cent of prolific offenders.

He said: "We hope to meet that (Government) target in the next couple of months.

"Last year we supervised about 565 high-risk offenders and one was convicted of a further serious offence."

Mr Gillbard added: "That performance is very good."