OUR Change It! campaign for a new law so that child snatchers can be put on the Sex Offenders' Register has been raised at the Conservative Party Conference.

A prospective parliamentary candidate for York is backing our petition, which calls on Home Secretary John Reid to close the loophole which allows strangers who abduct youngsters to go unmonitored in the community.

Julian Sturdy, spokesman for the Conservatives in the York Outer constituency, said he had spoken about our campaign to Shadow Children's Minister Tim Loughton, who was keen to take it up.

The Press joined forces with the charity Phoenix Survivors, led by Shy Keenan and Sara Payne, mother of the murdered schoolgirl Sarah, to urge the Home Secretary to change the law so judges will have the power to put child kidnappers on the register and ban them from working with young people.

We are urging Dr Reid to meet us so that we can hand over our petition, signed by residents from York and all over the country.

Now Julian Sturdy, who is also a Conservative councillor in Harrogate, plans to take up our case with the opposition party, in the hope they can also put pressure on the Government.

He said: "It is important to continue raising awareness so that the legal loophole preventing strangers who abduct children, or attempt to abduct them, from going on the Sex Offenders' Register, can be plugged. This would ban them from working with children."

Coun Sturdy said he had spoken to Tim Loughton about our petition and was urging him to raise it with colleagues in the shadow cabinet.

He said: "Tim is going to see if he can work with David Davis on this, our Shadow Home Secretary, and raise it with Conservative colleagues. Tim was not aware of this loophole.

"I fully support The Press's excellent campaign and feel it is important we maintain pressure on the Government and with John Reid to act on plugging this loophole and protect our children."

Coun Sturdy, who was attending the conference in Bournemouth, is planning to keep up the pressure on his party on his return to North Yorkshire.

The Home Office has confirmed that it is looking into our case and that a review of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 could lead to new crimes being added to it.

If child abduction is added to the act, offenders who appear before judges in future could have court orders made against them.