Posters like this have been put up in the Murrayville neighburhood of Langley B.C., calling for a sex offender to move away. (CBC)

Some residents of a Lower Mainland neighbourhood are attaching posters to telephone poles and notice boards warning that a convicted pedophile is back living in the area and demanding that he move away.

The controversy concerns Marco Balducci, 44, who was freed from a B.C. jail March 27 after serving four months of a six-month sentence. Balducci had pleaded guilty to two counts of invitation to sexual touching involving two girls, aged 10 and 11.

'The trust he broke will never be replaced.'—Murrrayville resident

The incidents occurred between 2006 and 2007 in Murrayville while the girls attended sleepovers with Balducci's daughter.

The posters read: "Convicted Pedophile Living In Murrayville," and below a photograph of a smiling Balducci, the crimes he admitted to are described.

Area resident Donna Shaw admits her poster campaign is intended to force Balducci to move away.

"We're just hoping that the pressure of us putting these posters up will make the family reconsider and relocate, and start a new life," Shaw told CBC News Monday.

Criminologist warns of vigilantism

Soon after Shaw and others started posting the warnings, other residents pulled them down, Shaw said.

The judge reviewing Balducci's release, Jean Lytwyn, allowed him to return to his home, where the crimes were committed.

Lytwyn said that the stress of moving would be too great on Balducci's family while his wife fights breast cancer, which was diagnosed in July 2009.

The judge also ordered that no children under the age of 14 are to be in the Balducci home, except for his own children.

A B.C. criminologist said that while neighbourhood fears are understandable, the law does not condone running someone out of their home.

Donna Shaw staples up a poster of a convicted pedophile she would like to see move from her neighbourhood. (CBC)

"You can't simply force a person to leave an area," said Rob Gordon, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby. "Let's hope that doesn't escalate, because if it escalates, it will escalate into forms of vigilantism that are totally inappropriate."

Gordon said the more someone is forced to move around, the more unstable their situation becomes and the more likely they are to reoffend.

But some neighbours expressed little sympathy.

"This whole community has to come back and heal," said one neighbour who would identify himself only as Dave. "And we can't, as long as a wound is open like this … and that wound will always be open as long as he is living here."

"The trust he broke will never be replaced," said another resident.