PEOPLE living in a Largs housing estate have slammed a decision to house a child sex offender close to a popular swing park.

A flood of concerned residents have contacted the News after Garry Allmark was rehomed in a block of flats in Waterside Street.

One fuming householder told the News that it was a 'disgrace' that the criminal, who was convicted in September, has been put there.

He said: "Allmark was allowed to move in there despite the fact that the tenants of the block had suffered two years of antisocial behaviour from the previous evicted tenant in that very same flat.

"The people on the block are elderly or vulnerable - and the authorities don't seem to care."

Allmark was convicted at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court after he tried to meet a child outside a leisure centre and caught using two fake names online without informing authorities.

The 50-year-old failed to inform police he was using the name ‘Billy Mark’, breaching his sex offender supervision conditions.

He was also caught using the name ‘Joe Bell’ between July and October last year.

His defence solicitor Brian Holliman told Kilmarnock Sheriff Court that breaches were down to a ‘lack of understanding’ and ‘not nefarious or sinister’.

Allmark was caught in 2018 after grooming who he thought was a 12-year-old girl – after being stung by an online group Scotland Anti Predator Alliance (SAPA).

The group snared Allmark online while he was living at a flat in Ardrossan with his wife and eight-year-old son.

They arranged to meet him and confronted him over the vile messages he had sent to one of their decoys.

The Waterside Street local added: "Is this the type of person you would rehome next to a playpark? It is a crazy decision and one people around here are appalled at."

Earlier this year two paedophile hunters admitted causing him fear and alarm after turning up at the offender's former home in Irvine last April and live streaming the confrontation on the internet.

Allmark had been in communication with a person whom he assumed was a child under the age of 13 but was actually speaking to a decoy from the Scottish Anti Predator Alliance, who provided police with copies of the messages sent by the 50-year-old, leading to his arrest.

Allmark was placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register, on a Community Payback Order which saw him supervised by social workers for three years.

A North Ayrshire Council spokesperson today defended the decision to rehome Allmark in Largs.

They said: “We must follow the MAPPA (Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements) process in all cases where it has a duty to provide accommodation for those subject to these arrangements.

“Police Scotland, the Scottish Prison Service, North Ayrshire Council, North Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership and other agencies work together to manage risk and support reintegration into the community upon release from prison.

“All individuals are regularly risk assessed and the location of any potential home is also subject to a risk assessment process.

“The agencies involved in MAPPA do not provide comment on individual cases."