‘Underground’ Paedophile Concerns

Telling the public the whereabouts of paedophiles would drive offenders underground, senior police officers and social workers have warned. They were giving evidence to a Scottish Parliament sub-committee as part of an inquiry into sex offenders.

MSPs have already heard from Glasgow mother Margaret Ann Cummings, whose eight-year-old son Mark was killed by a convicted sex offender in 2004.

She has been campaigning for disclosure under a new ‘Mark’s Law’.

Det Supt James Cameron, chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland risk management working group, said it was already impossible to keep tabs on all offenders.

He included those convicted before registration rules were introduced in 1997.

“We do already have the means to disclose where there are specific concerns for us as to specific individuals, but that has got to be specific circumstances,” he said.

Mr Camerson said an extra police force would be needed to monitor every convicted sex offender in Scotland.

“Monitoring all unregistered sex offenders, which probably includes offenders who committed crimes in the 1930s, is aspirational in my view,” he said.

“If you look at the suggestion that one officer is responsible for 50 offenders, it doesn’t take long to then realise that we would need an additional Scottish police service to comply with the Evans report on unregistered sex offenders.”

He added that it was impossible to get every convicted sex offender to register and raised concerns about offenders fleeing abroad.

Alan Baird, director of social work at Dundee City Council, also said it would be a high risk strategy.

“We’ve got to work openly with sex offenders – we cannot afford as a society for them to be driven underground and we know that is what will happen,” he said.

“The ability for sex offenders to disappear is one that vexes very considerably all of the agencies that are working together.

“I understand, and I sincerely sympathise with, the view that public disclosure, public notification, is a good thing, but I have to say I don’t think there is evidence for that.”

Prison and housing officials also warned against information about child sex offenders being made public.

Mrs Cummings launched her campaign after her son was killed and thrown down a rubbish chute by Stuart Leggate in 2004.

Leggate was a known sex offender who lived in the same tower block in Royston, Glasgow.

The proposals in “Mark’s Law” also call for a review of where sex offenders are housed and for special courts to be set up to deal with paedophiles.