March 2014
Pervert posed as talent scout to groom schoolgirl over internet
A paedophile who posed as a model agency talent scout to groom a 14-year-old girl has been jailed for ten months.
The sheriff berated prosecutors for limiting her sentencing options by pursuing Ross Addison on a summary complaint instead of a wider ranging solemn indictment.
Sheriff Fiona Tait said the lenient decision denied her the chance to protect the public from Addison by placing him on an extended supervision order after he serves his prison term.
She said it also meant that the maximum sentence she could impose would be ten months instead of five years if he had been prosecuted as a solemn case.
Nightshift worker Addison used Facebook to make contact with his victim and groomed her into sending him sexually explicit photographs of herself.
Creepy Addison conned his naive victim into sending him more than 100 sexual images of herself along with a number of explicit video clips.
Addison – who used the name Talent Scout in his email address – duped the girl by promising that she could earn up to £20,000 with her pictures.
He started by asking the girl for naked pictures but quickly began demanding more graphic images and videos of her performing sex acts.
The 27-year-old pervert made contact initially with the girl through a friend request on the social networking site and convinced her he was working as a talent finder for a model agency.
The girl was a total stranger to him, Perth Sheriff Court was told, but she was taken in by his promises of large cash rewards for her pictures despite being too young to model legally.
Over the course of ten-month’s online contact, the girl sent more than 100 indecent photographs and ten indecent videos, filmed on her webcam, to the computer at his home in Kinross.
Email records showed that he suggested she pose in her underwear and then naked, before progressing to suggest that the youngster perform a series of degrading sex acts.
Twisted Addison replied to one of her emails: “Wow, these pictures are probably the best so far. In fact they are the best. You’ve definitely made them sexy and dirty enough.”
Addison’s grooming of the girl, who lived in Consett, County Durham, was finally brought to a halt when her horrified mother spotted some of the sexually explicit images on her daughter’s laptop.
She contacted the police and a cross-border investigation was carried out which led them to Addison’s home.
By checking the email correspondence, the police established that Addison had promised money for pictures of the girl, both naked and in her underwear.
However, he had warned her he would only pay “if they were any good.”
The girl confirmed that Addison had never paid her a penny for any of the material she sent him and had suddenly cut off all contact with her.
Addison said that he had been driven to commit the offence through a combination of boredom, alcohol and cannabis use.
Addison, Springfield Park, Kinross, admitted asking a child to produce sexually explicit images and videos of herself between December 2010 and September 2011.
He also admitted possessing indecent photographs of children on 16 September 2011.
He was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for ten years and jailed for ten months yesterday.
Sheriff Tait said: “The court has been put in a very difficult position, given that he has been prosecuted at summary level, so the court doesn’t have the extended sentencing option open to it.
“This was a child. She was 14 at the time. It seems to me that the gravity of the offence screams out for custody. There is the importance of a punishment element.
“Given that it was prosecuted at summary level, the court should not feel constrained about looking at custody. I am concerned that the case was prosecuted at summary level.
“Nonetheless, given the gravity I am not persuaded there is an alternative to custody and it seems to me it’s at the highest level of summary prosecution.”
As Addison pled guilty to the offence he had his sentence discounted from the maximum 12 months, and may be released on a home curfew within just 75 days.
Addison had initially faced a total of six charges alleging that he had posed as a talent scout for nearly six years to obtain sexual material from unwitting females. The Crown accepted his not guilty pleas to four of the charges.
