Mum of murdered Mark demands change in the law
GRIEVING mum Margaret-Ann Cummings has campaigned tirelessley for Mark’s Law since his murder – which would force authorities to tell people if a convicted sex offender is living in their area.
Mark’s mum presented a 5000-strong petition to the Scottish Parliament demanding the change to protect children. But the law has not yet been changed.
Last year, a Netflix series examined Mark’s murder and investigated the danger of housing sex offenders in blocks of flats.
At the time Margaret-Ann told the Record: “Helping make this documentary about Mark was a tough experience for our family.
“But it was important to highlight, once again, the real cost to real people when officials and systems become complacent and lazy.
“We need politicians with the empathy to understand and make laws designed to put families and communities first, not the rights of devious criminals.
“Dangerous sex offenders should never be secretly housed in places where children and women are then put at a greater risk they know nothing about. It’s ridiculous that even needs saying – but it needs repeating because this is still happening nearly 20 years after Mark was taken from us.”
Before Mark’s murder the Cosgrove Report warned that repeat sex offenders should not be housed in blocks of flats – a finding which is backed by cops who investigated Mark’s murder.
The report in 2001 followed the murder of Scott Simpson, nine, in Aberdeen by paedophile Steven Leisk.
Just three years later Mark was lured to his death by Leggate, a neighbour in a high-rise in Royston, Glasgow.
In 2012, a four-year-old boy was raped by George Cameron, a sex offender living next door in flats in Toryglen, Glasgow.
And in 2022, despite strict checks around where offenders can be housed supposedly coming into force in 2019, Da Vinci Code rapist Robert Greens was housed in an apartment above mum-of-two Daniella Quinn, in Danderhall, Midlothian.