Fifteen council staff, including social workers, have been sacked or reprimanded after circulating a tasteless e-mail of reviled paedophile Gary Glitter carrying a child in a shopping bag.

An investigation was launched after an employee alerted bosses to the appalling image, which shows the convicted paedophile holding a plastic bag with a superimposed child’s head popping out of the top. Staff had circulated the email on the office network, where it spread within hours.

Some of those sacked are trained social workers – whose job is to protect vulnerable children.

A council source said: ‘These emails mocked the very children these people were being paid to protect.’

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Yesterday, South Lanarkshire – the authority at the centre of the scandal – confirmed that staff had been sacked or warned. A spokesman was forced to deny reports that the image of the youngster superimposed on the picture had been taken from the council’s own register of ‘at risk’ children.

She said: ‘It is totally untrue that images of children on South Lanarkshire Council’s at risk register have been circulated in an email.

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