Since being published on the website of the Houston Press last Thursday, a list purporting to show the ten most attractive women on the Texas sex offenders register has come in for heavy criticism.

The list, compiled by Houston Press blog editor, Richard Connelly, features a list of the women he considered to be the most attractive, having apparently spent considerable time trawling the sex offender's registers in the 15 most populous counties in the state.

The top ten features a picture of each woman alongside information about the nature of their crimes and the age of the victim at the time of attack. Examples include Esther Walty of Beaumont, convicted of indecency with a boy aged four years of age and Sharon Faubian of Fort Worth, who was convicted following the aggravated assault of a two-year-old boy.

The outcry which greeted the release of the list last week forced the newspaper to issue an apology later the same day, with Connelly claiming the motive behind the article was to "show that 'normal-looking' people, people you could pass any day on the street -- or who you might think are "hot" -- are capable of monstrous things."

The editor said that "glamourising or trivialising child rape... was never the intent. I hope that would be obvious, but it seems not." Comments on the original piece, while divided, were predominantly condemnatory. One disgruntled reader remarked that "a woman's appearance should not be fodder for trivialising... heinous crimes."