One of the best-known policemen in Sussex has retired - but his fight for justice will continue.

Detective Inspector Malcolm Bacon, the man who helped put child kidnapper Russell Bishop behind bars, is to carry on working with the NSPCC for a change in the law.

He led investigations into the murders of three babies in Brighton and into the death of four-year-old John Smith in Southwick.

The children's guardians were jailed for cruelty but attempts to prosecute them for murder failed because it could not be proved which adult carried out the fatal blows.

Mr Bacon, 52, is continuing his role on an NSPCC working party to look for ways of changing the law.

He praised The Argus for its campaign. Earlier this month, The Argus published an open letter to Home Secretary David Blunkett calling for change.

Mr Bacon said this was an example of how the police and media could work together. He said the campaign for change, which came out of terrible tragedies, had given him the most satisfaction in his 30-year career with Sussex Police.

Mr Bacon, who spent most of his career with CID in Brighton, was involved in investigating more than 40 murders but his highest-profile case was Bishop.

The Brighton roofer, previously acquitted of the Babes in the Wood murders in Wild Park, Brighton, was convicted in 1991 of kidnapping and attempting to murder a seven-year-old girl from Whitehawk, Brighton.

He took his victim to Devil's Dyke and left her there for dead. Police said it was a miracle the girl survived.

She told police the offender used a red car and it was Mr Bacon who remembered it was the same colour as Bishop's.

Police seized Bishop's vehicle and found a trove of evidence inside linking him with the crime.