It has been reported that a Scottish convicted paedophile exploited a name-change loophole and gained direct access to school children.
Until recently, Marc Sherland was the President of the World Burns Federation.
He was also the man in charge of an annual inter-school Burns competition.
When I saw the news at the weekend. I immediately recognised the name. A quick search through my emails confirmed that I spoke to him last December after my daughter performed spoken verse poetry at one of the Burns competitions.
At the time, there had been an issue with mis-communication when the prizes were awarded and my wee girl was a bit upset afterwards.
It was no big deal but I emailed the person in charge just to give him a heads up, so it could be avoided in future.
He was polite and helpful in his response. He said he remembered my daughter’s performance. He was one of the judges that she had performed in front of.
Now we know that Marc Sherland is actually former community worker Douglas Stuart Hammond. In 1991, he was convicted of the indecent assault of boys aged eight and 10.
The Sex Offenders’ Register wasn’t set up until 1997 and it is not retroactive, which means that Marc Sherland wasn’t placed on it. He was free to change his name and, in doing so, all but erase his criminal past and gain access to children.
In response to the reports at the weekend, Sherland claimed that he only changed his name because he wanted to use a less common name in his work as an author.
‘Assaulting children is not a personality trait’
When asked if he understood why parents would be concerned about somebody with his offending history working with children, Sherland said he did, but he thought that because of the time that had passed since his conviction and the change in his “personality’” since the offending took place, it wasn’t an issue.
It should go without saying that sexually assaulting children is not a personality trait.
Predatory men will abuse any loophole they can find to gain access to children.
Sherland could have pursued any career that he wanted. Are we expected to believe that it is mere coincidence that he chose one which brought him into direct contact with hundreds of children every year?
Sex offenders should never be able to bypass safeguarding procedures by changing their identities.
Pauline McNeill, Scottish Labour’s justice spokeswoman said that action must be taken to “close the loophole of offenders who committed their crimes before the register was created going undetected”.
Questions must be asked about background checks
She is right. This case raises serious questions about the reliability of background checks for adults working with children.
As parents, we do all we can to keep our children safe. But they aren’t with us 24/7.
We put our trust in the systems and processes that have been set up to ensure that nobody with a history of harming children will get access to them through a school or club they attend.
We cannot rely on the honesty and integrity of convicted criminals to disclose their previous offences to the relevant authorities.
When it comes to something as significant as a full name change, this is a situation where we need more bureaucracy, more paperwork, more barriers – not less.
It is better to inconvenience some applicants and officials than it is to let even one predatory man slip through the net.
In response to the Marc Sherland case, the Scottish Government said the issue was for Disclosure Scotland to address.
In turn, Disclosure Scotland said that it doesn’t comment on individual cases. Let’s hope the next time either official body speaks about this case it is to explain exactly how they are going to prevent something like this happening again in the future.
Too far down the road to give up learning to drive
My fourth driving test date has been and gone. It has had to be rescheduled, once again, because I have all the road coordination of squirrel wounded after a head-on collision. I’m coming to the end of my tether. With myself, for being such a terrible driver; with confusing roundabouts and with all the people who keep beeping at me for going too slow.
My instructor says he won’t let me do my driving test until he is 100% sure that I’m going to pass. Which is entirely logical. But at this point, I just want to give it a go.
Failing in a humiliating fashion would be more entertaining than driving badly on the same roads week in, week out, on my lessons.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve already spent God knows how many thousands of pounds on learning to drive, I’d probably just give up. But I’m too far down the track to throw in the towel now.
My instructor says that when I finally pass we are going to have a drink to celebrate. I suspect he’ll be waiting some time for that glass of fizz.
