SIX hundred sex offenders are currently being monitored across Cumbria, new figures confirm.

The shocking figure is revealed today following a Freedom of Information request which lays bare the scale of the risk management being faced every day by the county’s police force.

There are currently 13 full-time offender managers whose job it is to monitor registered sex offenders.

Among the tools they use are ‘polygraph’ (lie-detector) devices.

Senior officers have stressed that there are more police officers than just those in the core team working to manage the risk posed by the county’s sex criminals.

All people convicted of a sex offence must register with the police within three days of their conviction or release from prison, imprisonment or service detention, discharge from hospital, or return to the UK.

Of the 600 registered sex offenders, 28 per cent of them are in the south of the county.

In 2019, a sex offender who set up dozens of fake dating profiles to lure paedophiles to a woman’s home was jailed for eight years.

Stuart Callum Westwood, then 46, posed as the woman on Plenty of Fish making up sickening sexual fantasies involving the mother and her child.

The now sacked BAE worker also told co-workers she was into swinging and encouraged them to contact her for sex, Preston Crown Court heard.

Judge Robert Altham, sentencing, said Westwood, of Andover Street, Barrow, was “a dangerous offender with a febrile, sexual, perverted imagination.”

Detective Inspector Martin Hodgson is from the force’s Management of Sexual Offenders or Violent Offenders (MOSOVO) Team.

He said: “All of our police officers are expected to collect intelligence on registered sex offenders and contribute to the wider management of registered sex offenders in the community.

“In Cumbria, we use every available power to manage and reduce the risk convicted sex offenders pose to the public.

“Managing the potential risk posed by registered sex offenders within the community is complex area of business for all police forces.

“In Cumbria, registered sex offenders are managed through the use of notification requirements, civil orders which carry stringent restrictions, risk assessment tools and risk management plans.

“The MOSOVO team has a dedicated polygraph interview team, who provide a highly effective means of managing the risk of our offenders.”