Alan McEwen: Keeping track of sex offenders in our midst

IT WAS a computer handed in for repair which led police to uncover Scotland’s worst ever paedophile ring. The discovery of child pornography on engineer Neil Strachan’s PC triggered an 18-month investigation which ended with eight men convicted of a horrific catalogue of sex abuse against children.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the case was Strachan’s previous convictions. Detectives assigned to the case knew within hours of identifying the PC’s owner that Strachan had previous offences for molesting youngsters.

Yet the mother of the 18-month boy he raped and filmed being abused while babysitting had no idea of his sordid past or place on the sex offenders register.

The case has again shown the difficulties police and other agencies face in monitoring sex offenders in the community.

New figures show there are 554 registered sex offenders living across Lothian and Borders, with 297 living in Edinburgh alone. Another 145 are currently in jail.

With that number constantly growing as more offenders are caught and added to the register, there are concerns about the ability of police and other agencies to monitor them effectively.

At the moment, there are around 50 offenders for every specialist police officer in Lothian and Borders.

In Strachan’s case, Lothian and Borders Police say that, following a review, he had been “appropriately monitored”. The victim’s mother, however, accused the police of “brushing the matter under the carpet”.

The police point out there are limits to what they can do when it comes to monitoring a determined offender. “We do not live in a risk-free society – we try to manage the risk, but we cannot legislate for the acts of a determined individual,” said a force statement in the wake of the trial. “The joint review highlighted that Strachan was exceptionally devious, deceitful and did not co-operate with assessment officers.”

It is of course not the responsibility of the police alone.

The review of Strachan’s case saw police meet with NHS Lothian and city council social workers to review how well their staff had monitored him.

This cooperation is part of the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (Mappa), introduced in April 2007 to enable the three bodies to work more closely together to monitor potentially dangerous individuals.

Mappa is widely regarded as the most effective setup of its kind in this country, however, with 93 “high risk” sex offenders living in Edinburgh alone, and 76 in prison awaiting release, concerns will persist about the manpower available.

Michelle Miller, Edinburgh’s chief social work officer, admits that risks posed by these offenders “can never be fully eliminated”, but stresses high risk sex offenders are “under closer scrutiny than ever before” thanks to Mappa.

Mappa involves an initial assessment, covering the offender’s work, home, hobbies and habits, to judge whether they are a high, medium or low risk to the public. All cases are under constant review.

Regular home visits and interviews, by police, social workers and sometimes psychiatrists, are the main source of information, supplemented by data such as any concerns about, for instance, drinking or drug taking.

A specialist police offender management unit oversees the task of tracking the hundreds of offenders, the most dangerous are electronically tagged.

Around 20 dangerous predators are subject to the most rigorous, Sexual Offences Prevention Orders (Sopo), which impose severe limits on their movements and behaviour, including bans on having contact with children or entering public parks.

The specialist unit has mounted surveillance operations at parks, private homes and public toilets to ensure the orders are not broken. But the huge task means comprehensive coverage of those on the list is a virtual impossibility.

This fact was brought into focus by the case of Sean McKay, who repeatedly raped a student during an 13-hour siege of his flat in January last year.

It later emerged that a psychiatrist warned police of his fears that schizophrenic McKay – who twice before kidnapped and sexually assaulted teenage boys – was about to attack again.

Police consulted a solicitor about a Sopo, but were advised the evidence would be insufficient to impose such an order.

Speaking after the review of McKay’s case, Assistant Chief Constable Iain Livingstone suggested the Sopo would not have made managing him easier, highlighting the unpredictability of the threat.

“Offenders can be stable then something triggers their behaviour,” he said. “We are constantly evaluating this risk and trying to minimise and manage it, but it can’t be eradicated.”

The fact police cannot provide 24/7 surveillance even for the most dangerous offenders was one of the main drivers behind the Scottish Government’s decision to make more information about sex offenders available to the public.

Parents are to be given the right to know whether someone who has regular contact with their children is a sex offender.

Yet even this approach is not without its pitfalls, as Lothian MSP George Foulkes points out, with the ever-present danger of vigilante action and misidentification.

“I agree with the principle of giving parents more access to information on sex offenders, but it would have to be applied very carefully,” he says. “If it was available widely there could be instances of misidentification of an offender and that could have unintended consequences.”

Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie has suggested alternative means to monitor offenders, such as using satellite tracking or giving lie detector tests to paedophiles as a condition of probation. Such powers will have to be seriously considered if police are to keep abreast of this most important of public safety concerns.