A major inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the murder of Dundee woman Mary McLaren has found that the authorities should have acted differently.
The significant case review does not blame the Scottish or Irish authorities for allowing Irish sex offender Patrick Rae to travel to Scotland, where he murdered the mother of three at the Ladywell roundabout in February 2010.
However, The Courier understands the review report, to be published in a few weeks, does make recommendations concerning certain aspects of the case.
The Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, which asked Lothian and Borders Assistant Chief Constable Ian Livingstone to carry out the review, would not disclose the contents of the report or the recommendations.
Mary McLaren’s family have been briefed on its findings.
Husband Scott McLaren and mother Margaret McIntosh were invited to Tayside Police headquarters earlier this week, where the report was discussed. They declined to comment afterwards but have said they want the contents of the report to be made public so they can finally be given closure.
The significant case review was launched in the wake of Rae’s conviction last summer after it emerged he had a lengthy criminal record and an arrest warrant when he crossed the Irish Sea. By doing nothing more than changing the spelling of his name from Rea, he managed to evade justice to commit the horrendous crime in Dundee.
Rae served seven years in prison for a violent rape in Ireland in 1997 and had been charged with allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in Dublin in April 2008, shortly before he fled to Scotland with a warrant outstanding for his arrest.
Originally from Longford in Ireland, Rae had stayed in various parts of Scotland before moving into a flat in Arbroath with his Scottish girlfriend. He did not tell the Irish authorities of his change of address, which he was required to do under their equivalent of the sex offenders register.
He appealed against his conviction last year, but it was thrown out by a team of judges before it even made it to an open court.