Backlash over sex fugitive secrecy
CAMPAIGNERS and MSPs have blasted Crown lawyers for refusing to let police name a high-risk pervert on the run in Scotland.
The Record told yesterday how senior officers asked permission to alert the public about the offender, but the Crown Office refused. It’s understood they are concerned about jeopardising his legal rights.
Sandra Brown, who runs the Moira Anderson Foundation helping sex abuse victims, said: “The public should be made aware that this person is a danger. I’m shocked that the police’s hands are being tied.”
Scottish Labour justice spokeswoman Claire Baker MSP said: “If police chiefs believe a publicity campaign would help catch this sex offender, they should be listened to.”
Her Tory counterpart Liam Kerr added: “This is a very worrying situation. The main objective must be catching the criminal as quickly as possible.”
Registered sex offenders who go missing are classed as high-risk because they have flouted rules to protect the public.
The Crown Office refused to comment. The Scottish Government said offenders’ photos could only be released when “there is an overriding public safety requirement, when doing so will substantially aid the police investigation, or when alternative means of progressing an inquiry are exhausted”.
Labour MSP Jackie Baillie led a Holyrood committee who called 11 years ago for an online early warning system to alert the public about fugitive perverts.
She said: “It is extremely frustrating that the justice system is still protecting the anonymity of dangerous sex offenders who go off the radar.”
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