Anger over pervert’s community sentence at play-park

A PERVERT who launched a sickening sex attack on a nine-year-old girl was sent on community service to a family park.

Thomas Morrison, 26, bit the terrified child on the bottom as she lay in her bed on Christmas Day 2013.

He denied the attack despite damning DNA evidence taken from her pyjamas forcing the youngster to give evidence at a two-day trial.

Morrison was spared jail by a sheriff and ordered to carry out just 200 hours of supervised work under a community payback scheme.

The schoolgirl’s angry mum said she has been let down twice in terms of the severity of his sentence and with regards to where he carried it out.

“It is absolutely disgusting,” said the mum, who cannot be named for legal reasons. “He put my daughter through hell she still suffers every day and then we find out he’s working in a park which is normally full of children.

“If he was allowed to work there, how many other sex offenders also could have been? He shouldn’t be able to get anywhere near children.”

Dollar Park in Falkirk is popular with families and provides a bouncy castle for children to play on.

But The Sunday Post can reveal Morrison also known as Thomas Burns was sent there as part of his community work punishment last month.

He was working with other convicted criminals inside a newly-restored walled garden ahead of its official opening by Justice Secretary, MSP Michael Matheson.

Last night, politicians and victims’ campaigners reacted with fury to our revelations.

“It’s bad enough that this individual was handed such a soft sentence for his crime,” said Scottish Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone.

“It should be obvious to our justice system that placing a man like this in an environment like that is utterly inappropriate.”

Falkirk Councillor Chick MacDonald said he was “absolutely astounded” and called for an investigation into the “shocking” case.

Campaigner Margaret Ann Cummings, whose son Mark was killed by paedophile Stuart Leggate, said: “How is working in a play-park going to rehabilitate Morrison when he’s surrounded by children?

“It’s terrible to even think that another child could be put in danger.”

The mum started an online petition for Morrison’s sentence to be reviewed after his conviction for sexual assault at Falkirk Sheriff Court in January.

The girl’s mum revealed her daughter’s life has been thrown into turmoil because of the attack.

“It has affected her at home and at school,” she said.

“There’s been a few times when she’s had to be taken to hospital because she was suffering night terrors.”

She applied to Police Scotland to find out where her child’s attacker was living after discovering part of his community payback involved working in the park. But she was told she was not allowed his personal details.

A Police Scotland spokesman said there were “well-established” systems in place to manage registered sex offenders, known as Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “Any individuals sentenced to a community payback order work under strict supervision at all times.”

Morrison worked in the park on August 12 and finished his community order at the end of the month.