Police lose track of eight sex offenders in Glasgow area

Police lose track of eight sex offenders in Glasgow area

Eight convicted sex offenders have gone missing from the Glasgow area. It has also emerged that there are 1088 registered sex offenders in Strathclyde Police's force boundaries.

The information was uncovered by the SNP through a Freedom of Information request to the force. An additional request for information on sex offenders from 1999 was refused on cost grounds. A letter from the force's disclosure unit says providing the information would require manual analysis of thousands of files to establish whether individuals had ever failed to register since 1999.

The letter, from Sergeant Christine Boyd, says: "We estimate that it would take each Divisional Offender Assessment Unit at least five minutes to examine each of their files and extract the desired information. This would cost in excess of £1350 which is above the £600 cost threshold set in the fee regulations. I can find no overwhelming public interest in this case which would allow me to justify such expense."

Earlier this week, First Minister Jack McConnell signalled he was in favour of telling families if predatory paedophiles were living in their neighbourhoods.

Shock as cops 'lose' eight sex offenders (Evening Times, 9 November 2006)