The son of a retired librarian abducted and murdered in Northern Ireland by a convicted sex offender tonight demanded a public inquiry into how he was able to kill her.
Micheal Harron, whose 65-year-old mother Attracta was bludgeoned to death by Trevor Hamilton and concealed for four months in a makeshift grave, demanded the probe after it was claimed her murderer was one of the closely monitored sex offenders in Northern Ireland.
Hamilton (23) from Concess Road in Sion Mills, Co Tyrone, was found guilty yesterday by a jury in Dungannon Crown Court of the horrific murder.
The farm labourer will be sentenced later following psychiatric reports.
The co-ordinator of the Sex Offenders Strategic Management Committee William McAuley said lessons would have to be learnt after it emerged Hamilton was under scrutiny following a previous conviction for a sexual assault on a woman.
Mr McAuley revealed: "He was being closely monitored in that he would have been regularly visited by police officers because of his sex offender registration, because of his risk management plan and he would have been visited by probation officers through his being on a supervised probation order and on the risk management plan.
"He would have been visited very, very regularly - probably more regularly than any other sex offender at that point in time in Northern Ireland."
Mr Harron said his family were entitled to know what went wrong with the system. "If it's true that he was the most visited sex offender then there's great failings in the system.
"In my opinion there needs to be an inquiry, a public inquiry, to find out what went wrong with the supervision, why he was allowed to continue his very serious sexual crimes and, eventually, why he was allowed to murder my mother."
Mrs Harron from Strabane, Co Tyrone vanished while returning from morning Mass near Murlog Chapel in Lifford, Co Donegal over the Border in December 2003.
Her remains were discovered four months later near Trevor Hamilton's home after specialist body recovery dogs were brought in from the South Yorkshire Police.