A PROBATION officer had glaring gaps in her knowledge of a violent sex offender before she helped release him, an inquest was told.

Anthony Rice – who murdered Naomi Bryant in Winchester in 2005 – stalked two women while at Leyhill Prison, Gloucestershire, shortly before being freed.

But Zoe Peckham, a former probation officer at the jail, admitted she did not know this when deciding to release him on licence in 2004.

Giving evidence at Ms Bryant’s inquest yesterday, Ms Peckham also confessed to not knowing that Rice’s previous offences had involved children and that one psychologist was pushing for him to undergo more treatment before he was freed.

She admitted too that she was unaware of the Lord Chief Justice’s words in 1989, when sentencing Rice for attempted rape, that he was “as dangerous as could be” and would “almost certainly kill” if released from prison too early.

Rice, 48, was freed on temporary licence to Elderfield hostel, Otterbourne, in March 2004. The following August he stabbed and strangled Ms Bryant, 40, at her home in Rowlings Road, Weeke.