I'm so sorry

EVIL child-killer Stuart Leggate has written a sensational confession to the mum of the innocent little boy he brutally strangled and dumped in a rubbish chute.

In a chilling personal letter to campaigning Margaret Ann Cummings, he reveals in horrifying detail the events that led to the cruel murder of her eight-year-old son Mark in a frenzied attack.

Warped Leggate claims the main reason little Mark died was because the brave youngster had the guts to REFUSE his sick sexual advances.

And in his scruffy, childish scrawl in the note to Margaret Ann - along with others from behind bars - Leggate tells how he:

CAME close to murdering a child ten years BEFORE he killed eight- year-old Mark

VISITED gay clubs and bought gay porn in a desperate bid to satisfy his twisted desire for young boys

PLEADED not to be moved to the tower block where Mark lived as it overlooked a school

STRUGGLED with the terrified lad as he bravely fought him off

FREED Mark at first and let him walk within SECONDS of safety

before snatching him back, and

FEELS shame, anger and disgust - and says he must NEVER be let out.

In one of the astonishing letters, Leggate even says that he SUPPORTS Margaret Ann's call for Mark's Law - which would give parents the right to know when a sex offender is living close to their home.

The paedophile claims more children will be murdered by beasts like him unless the law clamps down.

And in a chilling prediction, he warns: "Something has to be done. If it isn't, sadly Mark won't be the last victim to die at the hands of a sex offender."

Little Mark was murdered at the tower block in Royston, Glasgow, where he lived with his mum and two brothers in June 2004.

Leggate, 33, had been moved to the estate three years previously, despite his horrific record of child abuse.

He was convicted of shameless indecency when he was just a teenager in 1993, and two years later was caged for 60 days for lewd and libidinous practices against a nine-year-old boy.

In 1997, he was sentenced to four years behind bars for sex offences involving a seven-year-old girl, a boy aged nine and a girl who was just three years old.

Yet astonishingly he was then housed in a tower block FULL of young kids - and murdered Mark.

Since the tragedy, mum-of-three Margaret Ann, 34, has fought tirelessly for the introduction of Mark's Law to let parents know about perverts living in their communities.

But she has always been haunted by Mark's murder and, until now, has never known what REALLY happened during his final moments.

So with Margaret Ann's approval, the News of the World contacted Leggate at Peterhead Prison - where he is serving a minimum of 20 years - and he agreed to write to us about his crime.

We also wanted to ask him WHY he had been placed in a family estate by authorities fully aware of his past - and HOW he had been monitored by cops and social workers.

After an initial series of letters, he decided to write one personal 4,860- word note to Margaret Ann outlining why he killed her tragic son.

The amazing confession is today printed on the following pages - although we have chosen to omit some of its more graphic detail.

Plucky Margaret Ann agreed to the letter being printed to let our readers see why beasts like Leggate should be locked up for life - and to help push for Mark's Law to protect other kids.

In the note - addressed to 'MAC' (Margaret Ann Cummings) - Leggate claims he never wanted to live in Royston in the first place.

He tells her: "I was forced to move. From the kitchen window you could look over to the primary school and see kids running around playing.

"About 200 yards down the road there was the Roch High School.

"I was concerned but as usual they (the social workers) said, 'Don't worry about it'. The social workers weren't helpful - they were useless."

Leggate lived in the block for three years - until the fateful day he first noticed Mark.

The fiend describes how he had been working on his car near the Royston tower block when Mark approached him with a pal. He confesses: "I found him very attractive. I thought, 'Never mind his mate, get Mark'. I tried to ignore it, but found it difficult."

Leggate reveals that while he casually chatted to innocent Mark, he was already hatching a vile plot to abuse the trusting youngster.

As the boy played with a messy tin of grease that the fiend was using to fix his motor, he started talking to him about computer games. Leggate says: "I used an excuse about PlayStation 2 and asked him if he had one. He asked me what games I had. I said, 'Do you want a couple?' and he said yes. That's when I put my plan into play."

Scheming Leggate invited the schoolboy to his seedy flat and the trusting eight-year-old followed him up the stairs to his dingy home.

Leggate tells Margaret Ann in his disturbing confession: "I said to myself, 'This is it'. I felt alive. We went in and I told him to put my grease on the floor. I offered to help him wash so that he wouldn't get into trouble."

While Mark looked at computer games, Leggate sat in his bedroom preparing to carry out his plan.

He adds: "I went through with just my boxers on, looked at Mark and thought, 'He doesn't know what's going on'."

Leggate then tells Margaret Ann how he offered Mark money to give in to his sick requests. But the brave youngster refused and said he was leaving the flat.

At first, predator Leggate let little Mark leave to go home. But, as the killer sat brooding in his seedy den, he had a change of heart.

The desperate beast raced back out to the landing - and found the schoolboy still waiting for the lift to take him back up to his floor.

Leggate writes: "I stood there shaking and thinking, 'I want him. I'm going to bring him back in'. He was waiting at the lift when I went out."

In a tragic twist of fate, if the lift HAD arrived, Mark would have escaped safely back to his flat by the time his killer re-appeared.

Instead, he was lured back into Leggate's sixth floor lair and murdered in a frenzied attack.

The beast says: "I thought, 'This is it, he's mine', but at the same time I was telling myself, 'No, let him, go'."

He then gives Margaret Ann a disturbingly graphic account of how he abused her youngest son and punched him when he refused to go along with the sordid plan.

In the heart-breaking letter he confesses how terrified Mark begged for his mum as he lay pinned under the merciless beast. Callous Leggate admits: "I was angry at myself for what I was doing. I knew I should have let him go home. But I didn't."

Leggate then finally confesses to Margaret Ann WHY he murdered Mark and destroyed her life forever. He reveals that he strangled her beloved little boy because he bravely REFUSED his advances and stood up to him, writing: "I killed Mark because I got so angry at him for saying no to me. I thought, 'Well **** you Mark, you're not going home'."

In the horrific account - and in other letters also seen by the News of the World - he tells how he was also overcome by a furious rage because he had let a previous last child victim escape.

He reveals that, in December 1994, he attacked a seven-year-old boy, who resisted off his advances.

Leggate molested the lad, punched him and let him go. But the pervert says the events haunted him so much he was DETERMINED to go through with murder the second time around.

During Leggate's murder trial at the High Court in Glasgow in October 2004, he was said to have ranted under his breath as he strangled Mark: "I let the last one go, am not letting this one go."

And in one of his letters, he writes: "They put that down as the reason I killed Mark. Yes I did say that quote. I did say that to the police but it wasn't the reason for what happened to Mark."

He continues: "When I was holding Mark's neck down I thought of ****** and how I let him go. I heard myself saying, 'I let the last one go, am not letting this one go'. I stress it wasn't the reason I killed Mark. It was because I got so angry at him saying no to me."

After the murder, Leggate stuffed his victim's lifeless little body in a bin bag and callously dumped it down a rubbish chute where it was discovered later that night after distraught Margaret Ann reported Mark missing. Searchers acting on a hunch by a police officer opened up the refuse area, where they made the terrible discovery.

Leggate had fled in his car to Berwick upon Tweed but returned and was held by cops. He tells Margaret Ann: "They interviewed me and I told them Mark was in my flat. That's when they arrested me and held me. It was eight hours later that they got the truth."

Continuing his confession to the shattered mum, he writes: "I know this has been upsetting for you, but you deserve to know the truth.

"I am so sorry and every day I regret what I did to Mark. I am angry and upset for letting myself go down that road again. Nobody knew how I really felt about my crime. Now after five years I have written this letter to you because you more than anyone have a right to know I felt and how I feel now.

"I know this will be difficult but you deserve to know the truth. I have never revealed why before now.

"I don't know if this will bring some comfort to you. But I hope it can let you come to terms with everything." Evil Leggate admits he should never be freed from prison, describing himself as a "ticking timebomb waiting to go off".

And in one letter he warns that, without stricter checks, beasts like him will keep preying on youngsters.

He says: "A lot of people want me dead. I don't blame them. Sometimes I do wish I was dead.

"I feel I don't deserve anything - parole, being alive - when Mark isn't. I deserve to rot in here.

"Sometimes I can't handle the fact that I took a young boy's life away from him and destroyed a family's happiness at the same time. To be honest I haven't come to terms to what I did as I didn't think I was capable of something like this. And every day that goes by I think about what happened and how I could have stopped it from happening.

"I am not making any excuses for what I did; that I can't and won't do. There is no excuse for what I did.

"Sadly people do get dumped in flats, houses or areas and be forgotten all cause the social workers can't be bothered checking on them."

Leggate's confession raises crucial questions over WHY a convicted sex offender was sent to live in a family- friendly tower block full of children.

It sparks fears over why not a SINGLE social worker checked on him after he was placed in Royston.

And it raises frightening concerns over the current monitoring of the 3,000 other perverts on the sex offenders' register in Scotland, and another 783 in prison or abroad.

Amazingly, EIGHT other beasts were living in the same street as Mark and Leggate when the killer struck.

And chillingly, cops don't know the whereabouts of THIRTY missing fiends, according to figures released this week.

Leggate adds: "I don't want Margaret Ann to go through life wondering why. I want her to know the truth and hopefully ease some of the pain she feels each day that goes by, wondering if she would ever know the truth.

"Mark should still be here enjoying his life, a long life in front of him snatched away from him.

"I only knew him that night and what I saw was a friendly trustworthy young boy, eight years old and full of beans. I was the adult that Mark should have trusted but I took that away."

READ THE AMAZING LETTER IN FULL - ONLY IN THIS WEEK'S SCOTTISH NEWS OF THE WORLD

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