MSPs demand to see banned Dunblane report

Scotland's most senior legal officer is to be pressed over a publishing ban of 100 years on a police report that could detail links between prominent Scottish individuals and the Dunblane killer, Thomas Hamilton.

Campaigners and MSPs are to lobby the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC, to be allowed to see the report. Officials say the order protects the identities of children allegedly abused by the killer. But campaigners say names could be edited out if the report were published.

Michael Matheson, a nationalist MSP, said: "If suspicions of a cover-up are ill-founded, I see no reason why the Crown Office cannot put the report, in strict confidence, before a cross- party committee for scrutiny." The report was written five years before Hamilton shot dead 16 schoolchildren, a teacher and himself in March 1996. The author of the report warned that Hamilton was a considerable danger to children.