A 48-year-old married man has escaped a jail sentence despite trying to lure young girls into sending him indecent photographs of themselves.
Kevin Johnston was snared by a paedophile hunting group that had posed as underage teenagers on the internet.
Johnston, from Forres, sent them videos of himself carrying out a sex act whilst he was at work and at home.
Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald sentenced Johnston to 225 hours of unpaid work, placed him on the sex offender’s register and social work supervision for three years. She also ordered him to take part in a sex offender’s programme as an alternative to prison.
‘You have lost everything … and you only have yourself to blame’
She told him: “I could send you to jail, which this merits, but you will not get any help. Your intention was clear, you wanted sexual relations with young girls. Had they been children, the consequences would have been devastating and lifelong.”
The sheriff also criticised him for continuing to minimise and deny his attraction to pre-pubescent girls.
“I have heard you have lost everything, your job and your family, but you only have yourself to blame,” Sheriff Macdonald added.
Defence solicitor Grant Daglish told Inverness Sheriff Court his client was assessed as low risk of reoffending, he had got a job in Inverness and there was an alternative to custody for the first offender.
Two victims could not be traced
Sheriff Macdonald asked Mr Daglish if Johnston had offered any explanation for his behaviour.
Mr Daglish replied: “He is at a loss why he did it. He advises me that ages did not occur to him, perhaps boredom and low mental health.”
At a previous hearing, Inverness Sheriff Court was told that the underage teenagers he targeted were actually decoys from the Hunting Online Predators Everyday, known as ‘HOPE.’
It was only when a sting operation was being planned to confront Johnston with their evidence, the hunters realised that he was their target in two separate decoy missions.
The court heard that after police raided his home in Califer Road and seized phones and a computer, it was discovered that he had also targeted other underage girls.
The court heard that two of them could not be traced. It is not known if they were also decoys.
Johnston, who now lives in temporary accommodation in Auldearn, admitted communicating sexually with children or people he believed to be children between March 25, 2020 and July 4, 2020.
Fiscal depute Robert Weir said that the decoys made it clear on chat and dating websites how old they were pretending to be and did not initiate sexual communications.
View the video of Johnston being caught by the paedophile hunters here
