A convicted sex offender who returned to Donegal at the weekend after fleeing the town almost two years ago has gone back to the UK, according to friends in the town.
They said that Alexander Dalgleish, 36, returned to Britain on Monday, hours after he was charged with criminal damage to a newsman’s camera.
The friends, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said Dalgleish arrived unexpectedly at the weekend during which he visited the annual blessing of the boats and raft races at Mullinasole on Sunday.
One pal said: “The lad has done his time and served his debt to society. He should be allowed get on with his life.”
Dalgleish was charged at Donegal Garda station on Sunday night with damaging photographer Matt Britton’s camera earlier in the day at Mullinasole.
He was released on bail on his undertaking to attend Donegal District Court on September 3rd.
Gardai are also investigating a complaint by Dalgleish linked to an incident later that evening in Donegal town.
The former disc-jockey served half of a nine-months sentence six years ago in his native Britain for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl and indecent assault on another at a North Wales holiday camp where he was entertainments manager. He was placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years which means he has to keep police notified of his regular addresses.
But he travelled to Ireland under the terms of a regulation that doesn’t require him to inform police in the UK he was going abroad because the trip was for less than three days.
Consequently, the gardai were not informed and were not aware he was in Donegal until Sunday’s developments.
A spokesperson for the Home Office in London – the equivalent of Ireland’s Justice Department – said a tightening up of the conditions means that from Autumn a person on the sex offenders’ register will have to notify police of any journey abroad. British police would pass on that information to gardai.
Two years ago Dalgleish was named by the Child Exploitation and On-Line Protection Centre(CEOP) on its new “name and shame” website as one of Britain’s most wanted sex offenders.
Donegal television viewers who saw a report of the site recognised the image of Dalgleish as a British DJ based in the town and calling himself Paul Williams and Small Paul.
He immediately vanished and later re-surfaced at various times in Sligo, Cork and Galway before announcing his intention in January 2007 to return to Britain to face the authorities over breaching terms of the sex offenders’ register.
In May last year he was sentenced to 12 months for failing to comply with his notification requirements, and with theft. With remission, he was released half-way through the sentence and is understood to have remained in Britain since – until his weekend trip to Donegal.
One angry local said: “He may argue that he has served his debt to society, but returning to Donegal was a most naïve act on his part.”