Sex offender was facing arrest when he carried out 'head in bag' murder

A warrant had been issued after Cameron failed to appear in court on charges of attacking a dog, but the authorities had lost track of his whereabouts.

Today, calls were made for a fresh inquiry into the monitoring of sex offenders in the wake of the case.

Cameron had appeared in court just weeks before the decomposing head and other remains of Ms Stacey were found dumped across north Edinburgh. He was convicted of failing to notify the police about where he was living.

After being convicted of Ms Stacey's murder yesterday, it emerged that Cameron had been jailed for six-and-a-half years in 1995 for abusing three young girls in Glasgow.

He was released from jail in June 1999 and was placed on the sex offenders register for life.

When he murdered Ms Stacey, 44, sometime between 29 November and 11 December, 2007, a warrant was already out for his arrest.

The warrant had been issued by Edinburgh Sheriff Court on 5 September that year after he failed to turn up to answer claims he kicked a dog in July.

Labour's shadow justice spokesman Richard Baker said: "When a serial sex offender guilty of abusing three young girls is placed on the sex offenders register for life, it should mean the strictest possible monitoring is put in place to protect the public.

Heather Stacey

"It is clear that the system has failed, meaning this vicious individual has been able to go on to kill.

"The monitoring of sex offenders is not an easy task. However, after tragic cases like this we must ask the question 'could more not have been done?'"

Last month, figures showed a total of 577 sex offenders are currently registered in the force area, with around 18 classed as "very high risk" and around 108 as "high risk".

It is not known which level Cameron had been assessed at.

Far more than just one more loser..a killer

After a troubled life Heather Stacey hoped Alan Cameron would look after her, but loving him proved fatal

AFTER years battling alcohol and depression, Heather Stacey could still joke with a mental health nurse that she only seemed to attract "creeps" and "losers".

But even with her history of violent relationships, the mother-of-four could not have imagined the latest doomed romance would end in gruesome death.

During a treatment session at the Craigroyston Health Clinic in July 2007, the 44-year-old told nurse Julie Donegan about meeting Alan Cameron at a charity shop where he volunteered.

She said Cameron had become more like a stalker, but added with a muted laugh that she had "taken pity on him" and soon the couple were engaged.

By November they had been to see Heather's mother, Elizabeth, in Loanhead to share the news, but weeks later Cameron would kill her and initiate a horrific plan to cover his tracks.

Following Cameron's conviction for murder at the High Court in Livingston yesterday, a statement on behalf of her daughter, Danielle Williamson, 23, was read out by relative Craig Dunn, 35, which described the "devastation, trauma and grief" she had suffered.

The statement added: "The family is absolutely delighted with today's verdict.

"However, this will never compensate for the brutal way in which Danielle's mother's life was taken and the pain and suffering she encountered at Alan Cameron's hands."

The jury yesterday took three hours to convict Cameron of murdering Heather at her Royston Mains Place home between 29 November and 11 December 2007.

Throughout the trial a scientist and pathologists were unable to say what Heather's last moments or the cause of death were due to the decomposed state of her remains. She was last heard of alive on 29 November 2007, when she spoke on the phone to a project worker from Edinburgh housing charity FourSquare.

The charity never heard from her again and eventually closed its file – though on 11 December the agency received a text, sent by Cameron from her mobile, claiming she had "gone to Glasgow". He pretended to friends that the relationship was going well, and boasted to colleagues at the Spar shop in Lindsay Road, Newhaven, where he worked, about his romantic dates with her.

A friend, Margaret Mackenzie, told the court that when Cameron visited her in Thurso on Christmas Eve 2007 he was "fidgety", scruffy and smoking for the first time.

Cameron went on to hide Heather's body at her flat for 13 months, moving it from room to room within the property. He repeatedly returned to the home to check the security had not been breached, and sometimes slept in the same flat as the rotting body.

In the months after Heather's death, the killer made repeated withdrawals from his victim's Post Office account, totalling 4,965. With a history of alcohol abuse and a chaotic lifestyle, none of Heather's four children or other relatives were overly concerned by her long absence.

But in November 2008 Cameron tore Heather's body apart with his bare hands as the decomposed flesh began to fall from her bones.

Heather's income support had been stopped months earlier and the city council made moves to evict her. With authorities closing in, Cameron broke the body into pieces and wrapped the various parts in bin liners and an Ikea bag before dumping them around the Granton area.

The gruesome discovery of her severed head in the Ikea bag by a dog walker on Hogmanay 2008 sparked a massive murder investigation and Cameron was arrested on 8 January at the Spar. His colleagues would later tell the court they had been disgusted by the smell of "gangrene" from Cameron's clothes.

During the police interview, Cameron confessed to hiding Heather's body for over a year but denied he was a murderer. He claimed his fiance had been on a downward spiral with drink and died when he went out to buy her chips.

Cameron said he panicked and failed to get help when he found her lifeless body in December 2007 because a warrant was already out for his arrest on another matter.

But a jury rejected his story and found him guilty of murder, as well as attempting to defeat the ends of justice and of stealing thousands from Heather's Post Office account.

Pathologist Professor Anthony Busuttil said strangulation "could not be 100 per cent excluded" but the condition of the body when it was eventually found, with 39 bones missing, made it impossible to tell what the cause of death had been.

Deferring sentence for reports Judge Lord Matthews said: "It is apparent whatever happens that you treated this lady, who was entitled to look to you for love and support, like so much rubbish."

Battle with booze and depression

HEATHER Stacey had battled alcoholism and depression after being slashed in the face by a jealous husband 13 years before she would be killed by her final partner.

The former model was left badly scarred after the attack with a utility knife by ex-soldier Michael Williamson, who was jailed for 18 months following the incident in 1995.

Heather, who was born in Essex, moved to East Calder in West Lothian when she was a child and married Williamson when she was 18. She had two children with him and a further two with subsequent partner Dougie Woolard.

She was treated for depression and anxiety by mental health nurse Julie Donegan at the Craigroyston Health Clinic in July 2007.

TIMELINE OF A TRAGEDY – HOW POLICE CAUGHT MURDERER

31 December 2008: Anita Anderson finds Ikea bag in Newhaven. Inside is a human head and other remains.

3 January 2009: Police say the head was a woman's.

5 January 2009: Police say they are going through UK missing persons cases to find DNA to identify the victim.

9 January 2009, 11am: Police cordon off West Granton Road and Granton View, plus the home of Heather Stacey, as more remains are found.

2pm: Alan Cameron charged with defeating the ends of justice and kept in custody.

6 May 2009: Alan Cameron appears at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, where he is committed on charges of murder.

26 May 2010: Alan Cameron is convicted of murder.

Fantasist with a Hitler moustache

ALAN Cameron was described in court as a "fantasist" and a "liar". Born in Glasgow in 1954, Cameron was divorced in 1993 and two years later was found guilty at the city's High Court of nine charges of sexual acts against children.

He was jailed for six-and-a-half years and placed on the sex offenders register for life.

Following his move to Edinburgh, and months after Heather's death, Cameron began working at the Spar in Newhaven. He boasted to staff that he was in a relationship with Heather, showing them photos.

Cameron, who cut a strange figure with his white hair and black Hitler-style toothbrush moustache, sat motionless and showed no emotion as he was led to the cells after the guilty verdict yesterday.

'He has ruined lives . . I hope he rots in jail and they throw away the key'

ALAN Cameron's ex-wife has told how he subjected her and their children to regular beatings.

Elizabeth Dalgleish, 53, eventually left him after discovering he had also sexually abused young girls.

She said: "I will never forgive him for what he did to me, to his own kids and to those poor innocent children.

"He has ruined all our lives and I hope he rots in jail and they throw away the key.

"He used to be at me black and blue almost every day but I was always too scared to do anything about it."

She said after beating her, he used to lock her in the house and go out for a bag of chips. "When he came back he would very calmly make a cup of tea and offer me a fag as if nothing had happened."

The women whom Cameron abused as children spoke of how he robbed them of their innocence. One said Cameron, a friend of the family, had abused her between the ages of five and 13.

She said: "He was very violent. He was very irrational and I was terrified of him. I never told a soul about what he was doing to me until I was 15."

Another victim, now 28, said: "He is rotten to the core and an evil man. After he abused me he would buy me trainers or chips or sweets to make up for it. He was a very disturbed man."

Meanwhile, the brother of Cameron's victim, Heather Stacey, branded him "scum".

Former RAF man Tim Stacey said: "The way she was murdered is incomprehensible.

"Cameron hasn't shown any compassion. But I don't expect any from someone who can commit such an indescribable act. He is simply scum. I'm just glad we got justice."