SENIOR police officers have criticised Jack McConnell’s plan to alert parents about predatory paedophiles living in their neighbourhoods, warning that it could put children in greater danger.

Iain Macleod, head of sex offender policy for the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (Acpos), has said he believes the introduction of a “Megan’s Law” would drive up to 2,000 sex offenders into hiding, where police could not monitor them.

The policy is expected to be included in Labour’s manifesto for next year’s Holyrood election and would lead to the location of the most dangerous sex offenders being revealed to schools, community councils and residents.

The warning system would be modelled on Megan’s Law, which was introduced in New Jersey after Megan Kanka, 7, was murdered by a paedophile neighbour in 1994.

Pressure has been growing for a similar policy in Scotland since eight-year-old Mark Cummings was murdered in 2004 by Stuart Leggate, 31, a convicted paedophile who lived in the same block of flats in the east end of Glasgow.

McCleod, assistant chief constable of Tayside, has warned that in American states where Megan’s Law is in force, police have lost track of up to 70% of known sex offenders. “We believe [the level of compliance] could drop from 97% to below 50%,” he said. “There will be those sex offenders who are hell-bent on reoffending and will go underground to avoid detection.

“The whole point under the current system is that we can monitor the movements of sex offenders.”

In Scotland there are an estimated 3,500 registered sex offenders who must inform police if they move address. A further 35,000 are unregistered but known to have committed sex offences in the past.

Last year a report into Scotland’s sex offender system by Professor George Irving, of Glasgow Caledonian University’s centre for public policy management, estimated that offenders were being monitored by only 60 full-time officers. Police recently admitted that they had lost track of 24 sex offenders.

Lyn Costello, from Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, said the introduction of a Megan’s Law in Scotland was overdue. “These people are already underground, they do not advertise that they are paedophiles. It’s insulting to the public that we shouldn’t have this information,” she said. “There is not enough supervision and at least this way we would be the eyes and the ears of the police. I think it would actually stop vigilantism which stems from people being frightened and uninformed.”

The Scottish executive said: “The justice minister has made clear that we will continue to act to improve public safety from sex offenders wherever we can. Professor George Irving’s report recommended a case-by-case approach to disclosure based around a police warnings scheme, so that where an individual continues to ignore police warnings about their behaviour, information on their background or whereabouts could be given to a relevant third party — a householder, for example, or an employer or leisure centre manager.

“We are now working with the police to put in place the new warning system which places the onus on sex offenders to abide by the law and any police warnings about their activities, or face losing their anonymity.”

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