There is nothing like whipping up a bit of mass hysteria to make a story run and run (and, quite coincidentally, to shift a few more newspapers from the stands). So it was entirely predictable that as the appalling truth about the fate of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman emerged at the weekend, some of the national tabloids should go into overdrive.

"Is any child safe?" screamed the front page of the Daily Express on Tuesday, before continuing: "Parents across Britain were warned to be on the alert last night after a spate of attempted abductions and sickening sex attacks on young children."

Tony Blair, the newspaper confirmed, had talked of his "distress" at the murder of the two little girls, and had sent a heartfelt message of sympathy to their parents. Yet even as he did so, the newspaper continued, it "emerged that child sex attackers struck several times in different parts of the country over the weekend". Meanwhile, the Government "still stubbornly refused to publish the names and addresses of rapists and molesters listed on the Sex Offenders Register."

Don't you just rest safer in your bed at night knowing that a fearless, campaigning newspaper such as the Daily Express is out there, fighting the good fight for you and for your children?

I bet you do.

Country-wide we can now expect that shiftless policemen, roused from their torpor by the newspaper's revelations, will be springing into action with a new determination to protect our innocent little ones from the forces of darkness.

And that those nameless civil servants, burrowing in the dark subterranean corridors of the Home Office who are responsible for not outing paedophiles, will be provoked by a sense of shame into rectifying that unforgivable oversight.

Oh, yes, and that parents everywhere, terrified out of their wits by the Express's sensationalist coverage, will be locking up their children for fear that they will be the next victim of the monsters lurking unseen on every street corner.

The Daily Express would naturally claim to be on the side of parents and children. Parents have a right to know, it would thunder, about the dangers facing their offspring.

Yet all the time, beneath their po-faced expressions of sympathy and concern, the newspaper's journalists and accountants will be rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of another cracking front page story.

The truth is, there is nothing admirable about the way the Express has covered this dreadful story. It - and other national tabloids - has demonstrated all the cynicism and opportunism many of us have come to expect of our national media.

The kind of scaremongering story run by the Express this week will have parents everywhere terrified to let their children out to play. And that could do untold damage.

Yes, what happened to Holly and Jessica was dreadful. The hearts of every right-thinking person in this country will go out to their parents as they struggle desperately to come to terms with their inconsolable loss.

And yes, it probably is a good idea to make sure you know where your children are if they are out playing.

But the truth is our streets are no more dangerous now than they were before the two girls disappeared. Nobody, ever, can be entirely safe. But your child is far more likely to die in the back of your car in a road accident than playing outside with his or her friends.

Without the freedom to play with other kids of their age, a generation of socially inept and stunted youngsters will grow up who have never developed a sense of adventure or learned all the complex business of how to get along with others.

And that really would be a tragedy.

Updated: 10:58 Thursday, August 22, 2002