Paedophile housed yards from schools

A PAEDOPHILE who abused boys as young as six was housed 100 yards from a primary school by city council officials.

Rodney James Boyd, 59, was jailed for five years in 2000 after being convicted of an appalling catalogue of abuse against two boys. But soon after completing his sentence he was sent to the Adelphi guest house in Leith Links, a stone's throw from St Mary's RC Primary, and close to Leith Primary School and a popular play park on the Links.

The hostel's ex-managers said today they had quit in disgust at Boyd and other tenants they objected to being sent to them by the local authority.

Boyd was convicted of four sex offences in 2000, involving repeated serious assaults on the two boys. One of his victims was aged between six and eight when Boyd abused the pair over the course of two years in the 1970s, and the other was aged eight to ten.

Mark Lazarowicz, the Edinburgh North and Leith MP, today called for an investigation into the case. He said: "I will be contacting both the local authority and the police to sort this kind of thing out. It's very worrying indeed and raises a lot of questions."

The ex-manager of the Adelphi, Kate McNaughton, who quit her post last week, said Boyd had lived at the guest house for two-and-a-half years, yet for most of that time she had known nothing about his past. She only discovered he was a sex offender when he confessed to her after being beaten up by vigilantes. The full details of his offences only came to light after she spoke to the Evening News.

She said: "The local authority would tell us nothing about people they were sending down to us. The fact a convicted paedophile lived there for at least 30 months tops it all - how irresponsible is it for them to put a sex offender so near to two schools?"

Boyd was beaten up the day after being rehoused by the council and he returned the next night to the Adelphi for refuge.

Boyd, who lived in Boswell Crescent, Pilton, when he carried out the sex attacks, denied the offences when he appeared at the High Court in Edinburgh in July 2000. However, he was sentenced to five years after being convicted by a unanimous jury verdict.

The secretary of Leith Links Community Council, Margaret Moffett, voiced her concerns about the number and type of people being housed in temporary accommodation in and around Leith Links. She said: "It really is turning into a dumping ground round here. Mothers will be up in arms about this."

Mother Jen Dawson, 29, who regularly takes her four-year-old child to Leith Links to play, said: "It's unacceptable. It's horrible to think my child could have been so close to someone like this."

Boyd is understood to have served the end of his sentence in a "halfway house" hostel, before declaring himself homeless.

Although the council carries out risk assessments before housing offenders, it is obliged to find accommodation for all types of offenders in the same way as anyone else. A spokeswoman said: "It is council policy not to comment on individual cases but we do have a robust procedure in place to deal with the housing of registered sex offenders. Included in this is a risk assessment, which is completed by council staff and police before an individual is housed."

The current manager of the Adelphi, who would not give his name, said: "This is not something I know anything about."

The owners could not be contacted for comment.

The so-called "Mark's Law", under which families and individuals, such as headteachers, are informed about predatory sex offenders living in their communities, is currently being introduced by the Scottish Executive.

It is named after eight-year-old Mark Cummings, murdered by a sex offender who, unknown to anyone in the neighbourhood, was living near his Glasgow home.