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A senior detective yesterday demanded changes in the law to make it mandatory for social workers to notify police when sex offenders are released from custody after a student was given life for raping and murdering an 11-year-old boy.
Dominic McKilligan, 19, who had a history of sexually abusing children, was not on the official sex offenders register because a supervision order imposed from previous offences expired the day before the register was introduced.
He dodged social workers after he was released in August 1997 and 10 months later killed Wesley Neailey when the boy resisted his sexual advances.
Detective Superintendent Trevor Fordy, the officer who led the investigation, said the case showed there were shortfalls in the legislation.
He added: "If police are not informed about the release of paedophiles then it's impossible for us to exercise any form of risk management against them hurting other children. Society cannot afford to have anyone with a history of paedophilia at liberty in the community without an in-depth assessment of the risk they might pose to children or other vulnerable people. We have got to look at what is in place at the moment and see how we can make it better in the future."
McKilligan struck Wesley over the head with a wrench and dumped the body by a quiet road near the village of Healey, Northumberland.
He then led the police to the site three weeks later after telling detectives Wesley's death had been an accident.
Following the verdict at Newcastle crown court, Christopher Knox, for the prosecution, told Mr Justice Bennett that McKilligan was convicted in August 1994 of gross indecency against four boys aged between seven and 11 in Bournemouth.
After inviting children to play games, he tortured them, in one case beating a boy with an iron bar.
Rumours in the playgrounds of local schools led to one of the most wide-ranging child sex abuse investigations in the history of the Dorset constabulary.
McKilligan served a three-year supervision order, but due to the timing of the previous conviction he missed being added to the sex offenders register by 24-hours.
McKilligan managed to dupe social workers when he moved from the south coast to a secure unit in the north-east, side-stepping the authorities in Bournemouth, Durham and Newcastle as his release date came closer.
When he was discharged from the unit for young sex offenders in Durham in November 1997, social workers lost track of him.
McKilligan befriended Wesley in the weeks before the murder. A shy and trusting boy who was thought to be mildly epileptic, Wesley visited McKilligan at his home in the west end of Newcastle, the court heard.
On June 5, Wesley waved goodbye to his mother and rode to see McKilligan.
He was caught when a former care worker rang to tell detectives about his past, and a cheque made out to Wesley was found in his flat.
Mr Fordy emphasised that Wesley might still be alive if his supervision order had ended on September 1 1997 - the day the register was established. His whereabouts would have been known to police and officers would have been free to check on him when they chose.
The NSPCC called for a national network of services to help stop children from becoming paedophiles.
Its director of child protection, Neil Hunt, said: "Dominic McKilligan was already a seriously disturbed boy by 14.
"He was in local authority care and assessed as a very grave risk to children. A full investigation should take place into whether this tragic death could have been averted. Too many young abusers are slipping through the net. Their behaviour and problems are not recognised early enough, they are left untreated and their victims are left unprotected."