A serial paedophile deported from Australia, where he has lived for more than 50 years, was met by police today as arrived in Britain.

Raymond Horne, 61, was the last person off a flight into Heathrow from Brisbane via Hong Kong. Accompanied by Australian officials, he covered his head with an airline blanket as he went through Customs before being taken to an Immigration Service office.

Horne moved to Queensland from Britain in 1952, at the age of 5, but never took Australian citizenship. He began offending in the 1960s and has just served 12 years for 14 sex offences committed after he lured two homeless boys to his apartment while volunteering for a charity.

The Home Office confirmed that Horne had returned to Britain. It said that he was "immediately detained by British authorities who will treat him in accordance with the standard procedures".

It added: "Where it is known that a sex offender convicted in another country is to be deported to the UK, he is met at the port of entry by the police, who interview him and pass any relevant information to the police in the area to which the offender is proposing to live.

Once in Britain, Horne will be obliged to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register, even though his offences were committed overseas. Breach of the conditions of that register is a criminal offence, with a maximum punishment of five years’ imprisonment.

Additional measures available to authorities include sexual offences prevention orders — known as Sopos — which can apply to offenders convicted of sexual or violent offences overseas and who pose a risk of serious sexual harm in the UK.

These orders not only make offenders sign on the register but also impose prohibitions — for example, from being alone with children or from being within a certain distance of a playground.

Shy Keenan, a child protection campaigner, complained that Horne would not be monitored by probation services or forced to meet stringent conditions and will not have to do any more than register with police when he moves to a new address.

“They can say to him, ’We think you’re an absolute risk — but we have to wait now until you do something before we can do something, despite the fact that we know you’re likely to do something’," she said.

“He will probably be given some contact numbers for charities locally that will help him with housing and food. He will probably be placed in a hostel — an ordinary hostel, not an offenders’ hostel.”

Ms Keenan, who is from child abuse victims’ campaign group Phoenix Chief Advocates, said that Horne would be “more dangerous” in Britain because he had no support network here. She called for the creation of an international sex offenders’ register.

“It’s not Australia’s fault and it’s not England’s fault — it’s the law’s fault," she said. "The law needs to change to empower authorities everywhere when it comes to sex offenders.”

Ms Keenan is not the only child protection campaigner to have raised concerns about the decision to deport Horne and other British paedophiles. Despite having British citizenship, many will have lived abroad for decades and have no family or friends in this country, making them more isolated and more likely to commit new offences.

Judy Spence, Queensland’s minister for police and corrective services, said the state was “well rid” of Horne.

“If he had stayed in Queensland, we would have regarded him as someone we would have wanted to watch for the next 15 years under very close supervision.” Ms Spence told the BBC.

In a reversal of the country's historical role as a penal dumping ground, several high-profile paedophiles have been sent back from Australia in recent years.

In July 2005 Robert Excell was deported to Britain after spending 37 years in Australian prisons for child sex convictions dating back to 1965, when he raped a seven-year-old boy. Excell was born in Britain and emigrated to Australia when he was 10 but never became a citizen.

Last May it was reported that the "high-risk" paedophile Keith Jamieson was being deported to Britain after a lengthy sentence for offences against young boys, despite his having lived in Australia for 36 years.

It also provides a counterpoint to the Home Office's own unsuccessful attempt to deport foreign prisoners, including the Italian Learco Chindamo, who is in jail for murdering the headmaster Philip Lawrence in 1995.

Ruling on the Chindamo case, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal said last year that UK authorities did not have the right to expel EU citizens just because they had committed serious crimes but had to show that the individuals posed a "genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat" to society.

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