A high-risk sex offender who had been banned from being in the company of any boy under 16 went on a road trip with youngsters in February.
Scott Murray, described as an Inverness prisoner, was the subject of a 10-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order which was granted at Inverness on July 20, 2015.
Inverness Sheriff Court was told yesterday that he has breached that order several times.
Sheriff Margaret Neilson also heard that in March 2017 he was sentenced to a 21-month jail sentence for looking at boys in a north leisure centre, and then released early.
Murray’s latest breach occurred between October 1 last year and February 5 this year.
Fiscal depute Robert Weir said Murray met with a teenager in Inverness on February 5 in his blue Astra car at about noon.
The teenager was reported missing to the police by his mother later that evening after he failed to attend school.
Officers were told by her that she believed him to be in the company of a man called Scott in Dundee.
Police suspected Murray was involved and mobile patrols were alerted to keep a look out for his car.
It was seen later that evening heading towards Inverness. Police stopped it and inside were three teenagers.
Mr Weir said subsequent investigations revealed that 33-year-old Murray had taken the boy to Dundee and had been in regular contact with him since the beginning of October the previous year.
They met regularly, and he would be taken by Murray to fast food restaurants, another location in the Highlands and Dundee.
The boy had also stayed at Murray’s then home in Telford Street.
Police also discovered that a second boy, of primary school age, had also met Murray and had been lured into his car to be supplied with food and drink, Mr Weir added.
Defence solicitor Willie Young said his client became friendly with several people at the Inverness meeting place, mostly over the age of 16 – but in the group were the young teenagers.
“That group attended his home and they took trips to Dundee to go to the casino.”
Sheriff Neilson jailed Murray for 18 months, backdated to February 6.
