Sex offender locked up, despite ill-health fears

Published on Friday 17 April 2009 22:07

A YOUNG sex offender who suffers from cystic fibrosis was sentenced to 30 months' detention yesterday, even though a judge was told that custody would take years off his life.

Iain Munro, 20, of Aberdeenshire, had been convicted of indecently assaulting a four-year-old boy, and Lord Kinclaven decided that, in spite of his complex medical condition, there was no alternative to custody.

A doctor had warned sending Munro to a young offenders' institution would shorten his already reduced life expectancy.

Munro, of Balmedie, had been found guilty after a trial at the High Court in Aberdeen of indecently assaulting the boy while babysitting. After the jury returned its verdict, Lord Kinclaven had said that a custodial sentence was uppermost in his mind but he called for background reports on Munro, a first offender. The accused was also put on the sex offenders register.

The defence counsel, David Moggach, told the High Court in Edinburgh at a hearing earlier this month that Munro's position remained. "He is adamant he did not commit the acts the jury convicted him of," he said.

A social worker had assessed Munro as high-risk, but he said the social worker had told him the nature of the offence and his age automatically placed him in the high-risk category.

Mr Moggach referred to a report by Professor Graham Devereux, the lead physician for adult cystic fibrosis sufferers in Grampian, which explained that Munro had been diagnosed with the genetic lung disease at the age of three, but he had not been unduly affected until his teens. The condition meant his life expectancy had been shortened.

But Lord Kinclaven said: "The court requires in the public interest to mark the seriousness of your offence and to deter others. On any view, this is an anxious case and I have given the matter close and anxious scrutiny, but in my opinion … no other method of dealing with you is appropriate."