SNP admits 100 sex offenders being watched by police went on to reoffend
After shocking MoS report that off icers are struggling to keep public safe from abusers...
NEARLY 100 sex offenders being monitored by police and social workers were last year convicted of further serious crimes.
Ninety-six were guilty of either violent or sexual offences despite being on the radar of the authorities, figures show.
They included high-risk William Hailes, 21, who raped a teenage girl in Livingston, and sadist William Belk, 53, who attacked a woman with learning difficulties in her home in Edinburgh.
The disclosure comes in the wake of warnings we reported last week that specialist officers supervising Scotland’s 4,417 registered sex offenders (RSOs) in the community are overwhelmed by their workload.
It raises fears that the public is at growing risk from dangerous criminals who are left to roam the streets.
This week, Jason Graham is set to be handed a life sentence for the rape and murder of Glasgow pensioner Esther Brown.
The convicted rapist was being managed by the authorities following his release from jail but forced his way into Miss Brown’s flat where he punched, kicked and stamped on the frail 67-year-old and left her for dead.
An investigation is under way into how Graham, 30, was able to strike again.
Last night, Scottish Conservative community safety spokesman Russell Findlay described the latest figures as ‘scandalous’.
He said: ‘These revelations are shocking but typical of what often appears to be a
‘Stark certainty is that more innocent people will be killed’
We’re struggling to keep the public safe from sex offenders who roam the streets
culture of indifference towards victims. The SNP Government must stop hand-wringing over the rights of dangerous criminals and ensure our hard-pressed police officers have the resources they need to monitor RSOs.
‘If the SNP don’t want to jail them then they must fund a meaningful alternative to keep people safe. The stark certainty is that more innocent people will be killed, with the majority of victims being female.
‘We are determined to put the rights of victims at the heart of the justice system with our proposed Victims Bill.’
The latest Scottish Government statistics shine a light on the scale of reoffending by RSOs subject to Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA), designed to ensure that police, social workers, the NHS and the Scottish Prison Service co-operate to limit the risk they pose.
Despite the pandemic cutting crime and creating a backlog of court cases, 96 sex offenders were convicted between April 2020 and March 2021 – down only one from 97 in the previous year.
Hailes, of Bathgate, West Lothian, was under MAPPA supervision as a high-risk offender following a string of sex crimes but was able to attack a 16-year-old girl, threatening to ‘ruin’ her if she reported the crime. He was jailed for four years after admitting rape.
Belk targeted his latest victim as she slept. He smothered the 47year-old’s face with a cushion and tried to rape her, later taunting her that he wanted to go back to jail.
In 2003, Belk was sentenced to 15 years for rape and has convictions for assault with intent to ravish and breaking sex offender notification requirements.
He was handed an Order of Lifelong Restriction (OLR), which means he will only be freed when he is no longer viewed as a threat.
Judge Lord Uist branded him a ‘very violent and highly dangerous man’ with a ‘compulsive need to be sexually violent towards females’.
Serial offender Dean Stevens, 40, received an OLR after he admitted assault with intent to rape a 25year-old woman in a park in Dunfermline. He only fled when she fought back and bit his fingers.
Stevens was previously jailed for six years for raping an Edinburgh schoolgirl and was under MAPPA supervision following a 2018 conviction for indecent exposure.
Margaret-Ann Cummings, whose son Mark, eight, was killed by a convicted paedophile in Glasgow in 2004, said: ‘Every four days an RSO commits a serious crime despite being under the supervision of the authorities. These are crimes with real victims whose lives are often forever damaged.
‘Esther Brown, my son Mark and others who have lost their lives… are their deaths the price society is willing to pay to keep the precious rights of evil criminals intact?
‘I don’t blame the police for the RSO crisis in Scotland – they are doing their best in a broken system with limited resources. We need radical change and that has to come from the politicians at the top.
‘Sex offender sentencing needs an overhaul, and communities must be allowed to know when a dangerous RSO is living among them.’
The pandemic has caused a buildup of cases as courts shut. Officials fear a return to normal business will see a surge in the number of RSOs in the community.
Alan Small, independent public protection chairman of Fife Partnership, warned in the county’s MAPPA annual report that ‘the criminal justice system… slowed… A backlog in court cases has had a knock-on effect on the MAPPA system, as many likely to be convicted and placed on the Sex Offender Register are still to progress through the court system’.
Meanwhile, as SNP policies aim to empty prisons of minor offenders, a record two-thirds of sex convictions resulted in a non-custodial sentence last year, up from 53 per cent in 2016.
A Scottish Government spokesman said it has increased funding in policing and community justice.
He added: ‘We take responsibility for protecting the public from highrisk individuals very seriously.
‘Public protection involves proactive policing and management of sex offenders, and zero tolerance of non-compliance which involves reporting cases to the procurator fiscal.’