Thousands of victims of violent crime are to be given the right to know when their attacker is released from prison, The Scotsman can reveal.

Almost half the patients at the State Hospital at Carstairs, including several killers, are to be released to lower security institutions.

The chief executive of Scotland’s top security hospital has told The Herald how the institution plans to cut its bed numbers from 240 to 140 by 2011.

In an exclusive interview, Andreana Adamson revealed that male patients not requiring the high security of the State Hospital would be moved to medium secure units such as the Orchard Clinic in Edinburgh, which is part of the Royal Edinburgh, and the Rowanbank Clinic in Glasgow, on the Stobhill site.

In those units, they would be subject to less stringent rules and eventually allowed out on their own. Patients can be moved from Carstairs only if they are considered not to pose a major risk to the public.

The move follows concerns that, under the European Convention on Human Rights, patients kept in an “excessive” level of security could sue the government. It is also dictated by new national mental health policy to provide appropriate local services where possible.

THE floodgates are set to open within weeks for compensation awards to thousands of abuse victims, with a legal ruling which will overturn a ban on historical claims.

A RETIRED police office who collected some of the worst child pornography seized in Scotland was jailed yesterday for two years and three months.

Free testing kits for one of the most common sexual diseases are to be left in pubs around Orkney to save local people’s embarrassment from going to their GP.