Pete Townshend faces sex offender leaflet campaign

A child abuse group has stepped up its campaign to stop Pete Townshend playing with his band The Who at Super Bowl XLIV next month. Child Abuse Watch has delivered a flyer (above) to residents who live near the Landshark Stadium in Miami Gardens where American Football's blue ribbon event - in most years the most-watched American television broadcast - will be held on February 7.

The flyer reads: "Townshend is a British citizen who was registered as a sex offender in his home country in 2003, for an offence related to child pornography. He will be at large in Miami on February when he arrives to perform at the Super Bowl with his musical group known as The Who. This is a community notification distributed in the interest of public safety."

Townshend was cautioned by British police in 2003, but never charged, for accessing child pornography on the internet and spent five years on the Sex Offenders Register. The police found no images of child porn on Townshend's computer, but the guitarist admitted using his credit card to access such images on a website. At the time, he said he did it for research purposes.

Child Abuse Watch founder, Evin Daly said: "Even someone looking for a job as a groundskeeper at Land Shark Stadium wouldn't get hired with a sex offender status in his past - why then does Townshend?"

The stunt is the latest move in a campaign that began in December, when another group, Protect Our Children, complained to the US immigration authorities that the guitarist should be banned from the country. The group's president, Kevin Gillick, said: "We acknowledge he was not convicted but he was on [the UK's] sex offender list. In the United States, you're on a sex offenders list for life." However, even when he was on the Sex Offenders Register, Townshend toured the US with The Who.

Child Abuse Watch also sent an open letter to the NFL, which runs the Super Bowl, saying: "People tune in from all over the world and they are going to get a British sex offender on their screen. Townshend taking the stage at the Super Bowl is offensive to victims. We are incensed."

As The First Post reported in December, Townshend may be able to count on public sympathy if the campaign against him gained any serious traction. He has said he was sexually abused as a child and the rock opera, Tommy - which he wrote - is about an abused boy.

In any case, the NFL has refused to budge on the issue. Spokesman Brian McCarthy said: "UK police cleared him since he was doing research for a project on child abuse."

Despite the high-profile campaign, none of the Super Bowl XLIV's sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Burger King, IBM and Visa, have withdrawn from the February 7 event, which will see the American Football team Indianapolis Colts take on the New Orleans Saints in front of an estimated global audience of 100 million people

Rising above the row, Townshend this week revealed the set-list for the half-time performance. It will be a medley of The Who's greatest hits, he told Billboard.com: "We're kinda doing a mashup of stuff. A bit of 'Baba O'Riley', a bit of 'Pinball Wizard', a bit of the close of 'Tommy', a bit of 'Who Are You', and a bit of 'Won't Get Fooled Again'. It works - it's quite a saga. A lot of the stuff that we do has that kind of celebratory vibe about it." ·