Leaders: Tagging sex offenders cannot be enough

THE monitoring of sex offenders when they have been released from prison is both highly complex and highly emotive.

THE monitoring of sex offenders when they have been released from prison is both highly complex and highly emotive.

It involves, first, the difficult judgment on when men who have been imprisoned for brutal crimes which have a sexual element should be given freedom, and how the authorities keep track of them in order to prevent them committing a new offence.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The publication yesterday of the report into the case of Ryan Yates, a sex offender who attacked a 60-year-old woman with a knife in an Aberdeen park as part of an attempt to abduct and rape her granddaughters, reignites this debate. The finding that more could have been done by the authorities to prevent the attack is deeply troubling.

These are the facts. Yates carried out the attack days after being released from prison, where he had been serving a sentence for a sexual offence. Two days before the incident, and four days after he had been freed from jail, the authorities obtained a court order banning him from accosting females in public. But the report found those monitoring him were “limited in their ability to manage the risks” he posed before this order was granted.

On top of that, the review of the case, which is critical of Grampian Police and Aberdeen City council, responsible for social services, reveals that Yates asked social workers to let him buy a knife on the day he was released from prison. He was allowed to go to a supermarket where social workers noticed him looking at children and “trying to get their attention”. This was not reported.

It is clear the authorities failed in aspects of the supervision of Yates, both in terms of not monitoring him more carefully before the court order was granted and in the failure to notice his behaviour when he was released, which is inexplicable. It must be hoped that procedures will now be tightened up as a result, not just in the North-east but across Scotland.

However, the report prompts wider questions, particularly over the recommendation that ministers allow GPS satellite tagging for high-risk offenders. It sounds attractive: it would in theory be possible to find out where they were at any time of the day or night. Sex offenders could be banned from going to particular places – near schools, say – and police would instantly know if they broke the terms of their orders.

But even if such technology was introduced, it would not be enough to prevent an offender determined to re-offend from doing so. In the time it took police to get to the area from which the offender was banned, a crime could have been committed. Tags have been removed before now. The only way to keep sexual offenders under supervision when released from jail is to be with them 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This is very resource-intensive, and expensive. If offenders’ behaviour gives rise to that level of concern, surely there must be a question about their release from prison.

Welcome endgame at Ibrox

It IS a story with more twists and turns than a Denise Mina novel, but we are, it appears, at last coming to the last chapter of the extraordinary tale of the famous football club brought to the brink of oblivion. The fact that, finally, American businessman Bill Miller has been granted preferred-bidder status by Rangers’ administrators and that he aims to complete his takeover by the end of the season, is welcome news for the club, for its players and, most importantly, for its supporters.

Although we cannot exclude the possibility of a further dramatic denouement, perhaps involving a final attempt by the Blue Knights to outflank Mr Miller with a last-minute bid, it looks like the team from Govan is about to have the new owner it desperately needs. After the disaster that was Craig Whyte’s brief reign, and the flawed stewardship of the club by Sir David Murray, it must be hoped the American tycoon brings stability and hard-nosed financial realism to Rangers.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The signs, so far, are that he will. Importantly, has been given assurances the club will continue in the Scottish Premier League and it may also be able to keep its star players, if they choose to remain at Ibrox. His plans to form an “incubator” company that would result in the assets of Rangers being transferred to a new company while the debts are handled separately is innovative; such an arrangement has never been attempted in football in this country. Whatever some may say, the reality is the top tier of Scottish football needs Rangers, for the money it helps generate and the sporting competition it brings to the SPL. For the sake of our national game, we hope Mr Miller and his new Rangers get back to being about the football.