NORTH Yorkshire's probation boss says the service is already taking strong action to ensure convicted criminals in the county do not get an easy ride.

The chief probation officer for North Yorkshire, Roz Brown spoke out after prime minister Tony Blair called for a "profound rebalancing" of the debate on civil liberties in Britain.

Mr Blair said the criminal justice system was the public service "most distant" from what reasonable people expected it to deliver.

He said: "The demands of the majority of the law-abiding community have to take precedence."

Ms Brown said criminals gave up some of their rights when they decided to offend.

"The right of victims and potential victims is much higher than the right of an offender," she said.

"People who are offenders have sacrificed some of their rights. If that means we have to control their freedom, then so be it."

She said if an offender under an order turned up even two minutes late when they were on probation, then they would be hauled before the courts or returned to prison.

"We are often criticised in North Yorkshire for being too rigid about it, but in North Yorkshire we pride ourselves on making rules clear to those under supervision and sticking to them."

She said the service was one of the two top performers in the UK.

But she warned: "We do deal with extremely dangerous people, and while we can do our best to minimise risk, it is completely impossible to eradicate it."

She said files for every one of the service's "high risk" offenders had been reviewed after the probation service in London was criticised earlier this year for its handling of two criminals who murdered banker John Monckton.

Both killers had been under supervision at the time of the offence.

Damien Hanson had been on early release for attempted murder and his accomplice, Elliot White, was on bail for drugs charges.

Ms Brown added: "We have been very reassured by what we have read. I do not believe our performance is like that."

Mr Blair said the criminal justice system was "the public service most distant from what reasonable people want", but could not be reformed without a "profound rebalancing of the civil liberties debate".

He added: "We should not have to fight continual legal battles to deport people committing serious crimes or inciting extremism.

"We cannot allow violent or drug-abusing offenders to be put back out on the street again without proper supervision and, if necessary, restraint.

"We cannot have bail requirements, probation orders or community sentences flouted without proper penalty.

"None of these things is new, but what I think is new is the emerging national political consensus to tackle them, and that should be a central part of the debate ahead."

Ryedale Tory MP John Greenway, a former police officer, said: "Tony Blair came to office nine years ago on a mandate of being tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, and it has taken him nine years to decide the system is not working.

"But they have passed more legislation to change the criminal justice system than any other Government I know."

Back-up 'not good enough'

ALMOST two-thirds of police officers in North Yorkshire are not satisfied that armed back-up is available if they need it.

According to a Police Federation survey, 34.1 per cent of officers were "not very" satisfied that armed support was readily available and 29.5 per cent were "not at all" satisfied.

Nationally, 29 per cent were not very satisfied and 13.7 per cent were not at all satisfied.

Almost 30 per cent of officers in the county were not very satisfied with the additional ongoing training available to equip them for the needs of modern policing.

More than 26 per cent said they had felt that their life was in serious danger once or twice as a result of a threat by a member of the public while on duty in the last two years.

In the past two years, 13.8 per cent said they had been threatened with a knife, and 15.2 per cent had been threatened with a weapon other than a knife or gun.

More than a fifth of all officers said they had sustained one injury on duty as a result of assault in the last two years, and about 12 per cent said they had been injured twice.

Crime-busters expand

A POLICE unit targeting organised criminal gangs is being expanded in North Yorkshire.

North Yorkshire Police's organised crime unit, which was launched in April last year, is to get an extra 12 members of staff to tackle serious offenders who may be living in the county but operating outside it.

Ten detective constables and two additional support staff have been recruited to the specialist unit from within the force, and will start on July 1.

Police spokesman Tony Lidgate said: "These kinds of criminals have always lived in North Yorkshire. They might not be running criminal operations here, but they may well be living here and running them elsewhere.

"It is clearly not the case that we think there are people running firearms and people trafficking rings from North Yorkshire on a large scale, but it is something that is happening nationally, and it would be quite wrong for us not to be aware of that and not to have a system in place to help people dealing with those inquiries in other areas, and dealing with anyone in North Yorkshire who may be involved in those operations."

The unit's first, and biggest, investigation was Operation Harpoon, which uncovered the largest cannabis farm to be found in the north of England in a raid last March. The operation could have been making up to £1.2 million a month.

Geoffrey McMillan-Smith, 43, of The Stables, Pickhill, near Thirsk, was the financial backer of the farm, which was in North Lincolnshire. He had laundered money through a computer centre he ran in Harrogate. He was jailed for seven years after admitting conspiring to produce cannabis.

Rape inquiries total 47

POLICE investigated 47 suspected cases of child rape in North Yorkshire last year.

Of those, 44 involved girls under 16 and three were against boys. Three victims were under 13.

The figures, for 2004-05, were recorded by the Home Office for the first time last year.

They were revealed by the NSPCC as part of its Don't Hide It campaign to stop sex abuse.

Updated: 10:44 Tuesday, May 16, 2006