A Fife paedophile who was grooming young girls using the Blackberry Message service has been jailed for five years and four months.
James Trigwell, 28, from Dunfermline, contacted 21 girls, aged between 13 and 15, and pestered them for photos and sent them obscene messages.
Trigwell admitted attempting to have sex with a 13-year-old girl.
He pleaded guilty to sending sexual communications to girls under 16 between August 2011 and September 2012.
He was caught when one of his victim’s mother found explicit messages from him on her daughter’s phone.
He was sentenced on Thursday at the High Court in Glasgow.
Jailing him, judge Lord Pentland said: “This was a sustained course of sexual offending against young children.
“You sent a substantial number of text messages to 21 teenage girls aged between 13 and 15. You groomed them although with one exception he never met them.”
Lord Pentland described Trigwell’s victims as “emotionally vulnerable” and said he had carried out “calculated and persistent sexual abuse”.
The sentence was welcomed by Police Scotland which came about after police in Fife launched two major linked operations to trap sex offenders across the UK.
Detective Chief Inspector Pauline McCallum said: “Both of these linked operations show the seriousness that Police Scotland gives to these types of child abuse inquiries.
“They were complicated operations which demonstrate the actuality of the digital world and the fact that it can, unless it is suitably monitored and challenged, allow dangerous individuals to operate with impunity and give them the opportunity to commit serious sexual offences against children.”
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