What are they trying to hide?
Esther murder police refuse to reveal findings of internal probe – or even say who’s reviewing case
POLICe Scotland was at the centre of a secrecy row last night over the case of a convicted sex offender who murdered a pensioner.
Jason Graham was jailed for life last week for the rape and murder of esther Brown after being freed early from prison for an almost identical crime.
The Mail has learned an internal police probe into Graham’s management and supervision as a registered sex offender has concluded – but the force will not disclose its findings. It also declined to reveal the identity of the person leading a separate Significant Case Review (SCR) probe.
Tory community safety spokesman Russell Findlay said: ‘esther Brown was raped and murdered in her own home by a sexual predator who was supposed to be under supervision due to the known danger he posed. It is vital for maximum transparency around what went wrong in this tragic case that esther’s friends, and the wider public, receive answers.’
SCRs are in-depth probes by local councils and other agencies including police to establish why a criminal who was supposed to be under supervision was allowed to reoffend.
It is understood an independent reviewer is undertaking the SCR who is not employed by Police Scotland or Glasgow City Council. Sources insisted they had been ‘carefully selected in terms of their knowledge of the multi-agency public protection arrangements (Mappa) process’, which governs the supervision of sex offenders.
The timescale for publication of its outcome is not known. The SCR will scrutinise material from all Mappa agencies and interview all relevant personnel. A source said the review has to be ‘thorough’ and cover ‘all aspects of Graham’s management’.
The force has not published its findings from the initial in-house police probe.
The source said: ‘When any registered sex offender reoffends there is an internal process in place where an intrusive review is conducted in order to identify any immediate learning. This review is undertaken by our National Sex Offender Policing Unit.
‘It is not widely shared amongst Mappa partners so it cannot be used to inform any future SCR. This is to ensure any SCR is entirely independent.’
The findings of some previous SCRs have been released only in partial form, leading to allegations of secrecy.
It has been estimated that as many as eight out of ten reports into child abuse scandals are not published in full, fuelling fears that the public are being kept in the dark over failings by police and social work departments.
In the majority of cases they are released in summarised or redacted form, often on the grounds of ‘data protection’.
Scotland is lagging behind the rest of the UK, with the Care Inspectorate warning that elsewhere the ‘presumption to publish all serious case reviews is designed to support a more consistent approach to wider dissemination of information and learning’.
Graham, 30, had been freed early from a previous prison term for an attack on another retired woman when he killed 67-year-old Miss Brown in her Glasgow home.
Rank-and-file police have warned that officers are struggling to monitor an ‘enormous’ caseload of sex offenders living in the community. A total of 4,417 are meant to be under close supervision.
A Police Scotland spokesman said: ‘As there is a Significant Case Review due to take place, it would be inappropriate to comment further.’