A convicted sex offender sobbed in the dock yesterday as he was jailed for breaking the conditions of his bail.
Kevin Innes narrowly escaped a prison sentence for grooming underage girls back in 2012.
The 33-year-old used Facebook to persuade children into sending him revealing images.
He was spared prison on the strict condition that he provided police with details of any electronic device he owned.
But last October, the officers tasked with keeping an eye on Innes discovered that he had secreted a mobile phone beneath a stone slab in his back garden.
He later admitted to breaching the conditions of his bail at his previous home of 3 Lossie Cottages in Elgin, as well as on the town’s Pansport Road and at its post office.
At Elgin Sheriff Court yesterday, Innes wept uncontrollably as he was sentenced.
Fiscal Roderick McAllister said: “Police believe that between December 2014 and last October the accused had access to electronic devices he should not have.
“They carried out numerous unannounced visits during that period, and Innes continually advised he had not breached his bail.
“But late last October, officers had cause to search his garden and found a phone and two sim cards there.”
Appearing on remand from Inverness Prison, Innes maintained that he found the phone near his home, and when he activated it discovered that it was logged into the Facebook account of another person.
His lawyer said the accused lived an isolated life and kept tabs on the Facebook account as a hobby but never used it to recreate his past offences.
Sheriff Olga Pasportnikov said she accepted that there was a distinction between Innes’s behaviour in breaching his bail conditions and his original misdemeanours.
However, she sentenced him to 330 days imprisonment for violating the conditions.
