A SUSPECTED PAEDOPHILE and woman beater cleared by a United Kingdom probation board to work at a primary school was yesterday jailed for six months for sexually assaulting a minor.

Ian Missing, 23, had been referred to the probation service in Essex after being convicted of assaulting a woman, and was sent to the school to carry out his community service order.

He had previously been investigated for a sexual attack on another child but police, following national guidelines, did not tell probation officers because there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

The case reeks of the Soham murders where Ian Huntley was allowed to work as a school caretaker despite having previously been suspected of raping four teenagers and abusing and an 11-year-old.

The abused girl’s mother could not believe that after the Soham murders a suspected paedophile could be allowed to work with children: “I want somebody to explain to me why somebody like this was working in a school,” she said. “I am furious.”

“I am very concerned that after the dreadful Huntley murders, this happened in a school. We owe it to all the children out there to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

Essex Police have now agreed to share information with probation workers after an independent review of how Missing was allowed to work with children.

The British government said last night the review’s recommendations could be extended nationwide once the lessons of the case had been considered.

Missing had been working as a gardener at a primary school in October when he sexually assaulted a girl, 11, by touching her chest as she walked home. The girl was not a pupil at the school where he worked and the attack, which he admitted, did not take place at the school.

Missing was given 80 hours community service last May after he had admitted assaulting his former girlfriend.

Probation officials were not made aware that in 2004 he had been suspected of sexually assaulting a girl.  Nor were they told when police found 200 indecent photographs of youths on his computer in August.  By that time he was ensconsed at the primary school.

No action was taken against him over the photographs because police could not prove the images were of children under the age of 16, even though Missing had made internet searches for “pre-teen girls”.

He was jailed yesterday and placed on the sexual offenders’ register for life after Cheltenham Crown Court was told he harbored sexual fantasies about young girls.  He was, belatedly, banned for life from working with children.

Mary Archer, the chief officer of probation in Essex, said she regretted Missing had been able to slip through the loophole.

“Had Essex probation known all the facts, he would not even be recommended for an unpaid work order,” she said. “Under no circumstances would we ever place an individual with suspected sexual issues to work in a school, or anywhere else where the public could be at risk.”

The school has cancelled its community service relationship with Archer's agency.