The mother of murdered schoolgirl Sarah Payne demanded action, not talk, following a radical

overhaul of sex crime legislation.

Home Secretary David Blunkett was today announcing the changes which would mean gay sex offences such as buggery, gross indecency and soliciting by men are swept away while protections against rapists, paedophiles and other perverts will be tightened.

Defendants accused of rape will have to be able to show they took "reasonable action" to ensure the other person consented to sex.

A new offence of "grooming" children for sex abuse is expected to be applied to adults who lure youngsters for sex in every aspect of life, not just on the internet.

Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was snatched and murdered by paedophile Roy Whiting in July 2000, said: "I think that any time our children are threatened we should be coming down harder, faster and quicker, nipping it in the bud, as it were, catching these people while they are grooming children and before they kill.

"The proof is whether judges can use this. It's all very well, all this talk. We want to see action."

Mrs Payne said she still supported the controversial "name-and-shame" policy to let parents know where paedophiles lived.

She said: "Thank God, Roy Whiting is one of a very small number of paedophiles. Not many would pick up a child they have never seen before and murder them.

"At the end of the day, he was let out of prison and everybody knew he was going to commit offences again. He should have been put away and should not have been out.

"If you are going to let these people out, then you have got to let people around them know."

The new Sexual Offences Bill will have a strong emphasis on protection for children, including moves to close a loophole in the law which allows men to claim sex with under-13s was consensual.

Offenders will always be charged with rape rather than a lesser offence.

Laws on child abuse will be updated, the sex offenders' register will be tightened and there will be new offences to combat sexual exploitation.

Mr Blunkett said when a White Paper was published: "The law on sex offences is widely recognised as archaic, incoherent and discriminatory.

"Much of it belongs in an age before the light bulb or motor car yet we now live in a world of global communications, with children two clicks away from internet porn sites."