Plans to put dangerous offenders under tougher supervision to prevent them re-offending have been welcomed by Bradford's probation service.

The plans, announced yesterday by Home Secretary Charles Clarke, include powers to recall dangerous and high risk offenders to prison at any time during their sentence. Under current law that can only be done up to the three-quarter point of a jail term.

The Government also wants to introduce a violent offender order - similar to the sex offenders' register - that keeps track of offenders who never cease to be a risk to the public.

Courts would have the power to make specific prohibitions in respect of offenders convicted of violence. Breach of the order could mean five years in prison.

Maxine Myatt, a director with the West Yorkshire Probation Service, said: "You cannot eliminate the risk altogether but we have got to keep working at getting better. What has been proposed builds a lot on what is already there.

"If we are to decrease people's liberty with increased supervision we will need more manpower."

However the solicitor who represented a Bradford woman stabbed more than 40 times by a schizophrenic released early on licence criticised the plans as a "knee-jerk reaction" and said they do not go far enough.

Sajit Abbas, solicitor for Nicola Hirst who was stabbed and almost killed in a frenzied knife attack in October 2000, said: "It is clear through my client's experience that members of the public are not protected by the law.

"A recent spate of high-profile murders, including John Monckton and Mary-Anne Leneghan, has led to a knee-jerk Government reaction.

"What they are suggesting does not go far enough and will only cause further complication and waste precious and sparse resources."

He said Miss Hirst, of Allerton, had suffered serious injuries.

"If the offender had been imprisoned and served his full sentence the attack could have been prevented," he said.

In March this year, the Telegraph & Argus reported that the killer of Diane Ruane, the Bradford grandmother murdered on her doorstep, had previously been convicted of manslaughter.

James Paton, 26, was jailed for life on July 12, 2005.

In 1999, Paton had admitted manslaughter and was jailed for six and a half years but released early from prison in November 2003.