A notorious female sex offender who abused two young children has been freed from prison after just 18 months, sparking fury from child protection campaigners.
Susan Abbott, 49, abused the boy and girl and beat them after getting drunk on Buckfast and vodka while looking after them.The abuse started when the boy was just five and the girl was six.
She was given a three-year sentence for her crimes but has served just 50 per cent of that term behind bars.
The Record has learned that Abbott was released this week at half-sentence, the norm for prisoners serving less than four years, and has moved back to her home county of East Ayrshire.
She remains on the sex offenders register, but there are fears that she could still pose a risk to children.
Sandra Brown, founder of the Moira Anderson Foundation, a charity that supports families affected by child sex abuse, said the case highlighted the need for heavier sentences on those who prey on vulnerable youngsters.
She said: “The serious nature of the offending and the fact it went on for so long leaves you in no doubt that two young lives were left in tatters.
“As well as the sexual offences, which appear to have been extremely serious from court reports, there was physical violence, which must have been terrifying to endure on top of the abuse. So how does this result in a three-year sentence, and what sort of message does it send to other offenders, and to victims of these crimes?”
She added: “This also raises the issue again that most people who attend court, including the victims of these offences – who are always vulnerable and damaged – don’t know that a three-year sentence actually means 18 months in jail.
“Do her victims and their loved ones know that this woman is already free?
“Do they know where she is and how to avoid her, or could they be walking along a high street in Ayrshire one day and bump into her?”
Sandra, who is involved in training other professionals in child protection, said issues about community notification when dangerous sex offenders were released were raised at intervals, but they had not been addressed adequately.
She added: “Identifying sex offenders at large, to their community, would create massive civic unrest and problems for the police.
“But the current approach of releasing offenders who pose a substantial risk without any sort of community notification leaves people, especially children, vulnerable.
“There should be a part-way measure agreed where communities could be notified that circumstances mean they need to be especially vigilant to keep their children safe.
“In some ways, this might be even more important when the offender is female, as children and the wider community will normally be less wary of a strange woman in their midst.”
Sandra said there is often an assumption women can be trusted and therefore are seldom suspected of sex assaults on children.
She said: “Our experience at the Moira Anderson Foundation now goes back more than 20 years, and while the vast majority of sex offenders are men, the proportion who are women and have come to our attention, and that of the courts, has grown.
“It’s not something that anyone can be complacent about.”
Abbot was convicted unanimously by a jury at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court in October 2021 of two charges of lewd and libidinous behaviour, one of sexual assault and two of assault.
The abuse began when Abbott was 28 and took place in Ardrossan, North Ayrshire, until 2016. The court heard she made the five-year-old boy watch porn and sexually assaulted him.
She sexually abused the six-year-old girl over a number of years.
Giving evidence in 2021, the female victim said: “I wasn’t too sure about the sexual abuse and then when I realised what was actually happening, I didn’t know how to tell anyone.
“As it started at such a young age, I didn’t really understand what it was. I thought it was normal at that point, but the older I got I started to realise it wasn’t normal. I felt ashamed.”
The girl also told the court she suffered flashbacks to the abuse. Abbott denied the charges, forcing the children to give evidence against her in court. After the guilty verdicts, Sheriff David Hall jailed her for three years and branded her offences “abhorrent”.
He told her: “The psychological effects of your conduct are potentially lifelong.”
The Scottish Government said: “All individuals convicted of sexual offences who receive custodial sentences of six months or over are subject to licence conditions on release for the remainder of their sentence.
“They are also subject to the sex offender notification requirements.
“A conviction for sexual offending will also bring someone within the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements which provides a robust statutory framework to manage risk, including after a custodial part of a sentence has been served.”
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