STEWART PATERSON and MARTIN WILLIAMS
Two sheriffs dealing with cases involving serious sex offenders yesterday were each prevented from imposing the orders they wanted to because of legal restrictions.
At Glasgow Sheriff Court, an insane man who carried out two attacks on women was ordered to be treated in the community after Sheriff John Baird was left without the power to have him detained at the State Hospital, Carstairs.
Two consultant psychiatrists from the hospital who assessed the "sexually dangerous" man, whom The Herald has decided not to name, said that admission was not necessary.
Sheriff Baird said: "I would have taken the view, if left to my own devices, that the risk to the public of this accused being at liberty was a high one, justifying his compulsory detention in a hospital, and on a basis in which his detention there was restricted."
However, he could not make such an order because the two psychiatrists did not recommend it.
Instead, the sheriff made a compulsion order for treatment by a psychiatrist. He will continue to be kept under 24-hour supervision in the community.
Meanwhile, a rapist said to pose a "very high risk" of reoffending is expected to walk free from court next month without the safeguards a sheriff wanted to place on him.
At Perth Sheriff Court yesterday, Sheriff Robert McCreadie told David McMillan, who is already on the sex offenders' register for life, he was unable to impose an order restricting his movements because Tayside Police had not applied for it.
Last night Tayside Police said it would now consider applying to place McMillan on a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (Sopo) to try to protect the public from him in the wake of the sheriff's recommendations.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article