Five convicted paedophiles have been named and pictured on a government website, after they failed to turn up to routine assessments.

The men have been released from jail but are required to submit to regular checks under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Having disappeared from contact, their profiles are now available to view on the website of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), a government agency.

Breaching the conditions of the sex offenders' register, as these men have done, can be punished by a further five-year prison sentence. Police say that the public should report sightings of any of the men, but caution them to " behave responsibility" and not attempt "vigilante action".

Separately, a pair of home counties vigilantes have set up their own 'naming and shaming' website. The men, identified only as Gary and Ash, are 23-year-old students who pose as 13-year-old girls in internet chatrooms and wait for solicitation from other users.

When a user makes an inappropriate or illegal suggestion, they ask him to turn on his webcam, then take a picture of that and post it to the Catchaperv site, along with the transcript of their online chats.