A 75-year-old Fife paedophile snared by a decoy “13-year-old child” claimed he had been stringing along the vigilante for “a bit of fun”.
Ronald Fyfe was found guilty of attempting to communicate indecently with an online profile named ‘Isla,’ who was in fact a 37-year-old adult called Shona Dreghorn pretending to be a child on a chat application called Tagged.
The offence took place between September 1 and October 14 2020.
A trial at Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard details of sexually explicit messages sent to the decoy by Fyfe, in which he said he would fondle and carry out sex acts on her.
He asked to keep the chat secret and suggested meeting up on Edinburgh’s Princes Street to get something to eat and to then “get the bus to my place”.
‘Just sitting in the kitchen in my pyjamas’
Ms Dreghorn told the trial Fyfe’s conversation turned sexual despite it being made clear she was 13.
She did not believe at any point he thought she was a decoy.
Fyfe claimed he knew the profile was an adult vigilante because he did not think the language read like that of a child, they didn’t know enough about the Sighthill area of Edinburgh they claimed to live in and the profile image looked fake.
Asked by defence lawyer Alan Davie why he continued the chat and what he was getting from it, Fyfe said: “To give one of them a bit of a run around.
“It was giving me something to do, keeping me busy.
“I had effectively no one to chat to at the time.
“With friends, you have got nothing to say any more at the end of lockdown.
“I was not getting dressed for days at a time, just sitting in the kitchen in my pyjamas.”
Asked why he tried arranging to meet up, Fyfe also said he wanted to see a “couple of vigilantes standing in the middle of Princes Street standing looking at crowds wondering who was who.”
‘Role play’
Fiscal depute Mat Piskorz asked Fyfe why he continued the charade without telling anyone.
He replied: “It’s like getting into role play”.
Fyfe denied getting any sexual gratification from the conversation but the fiscal referred to agreed evidence in a police interview in which he said: “It did turn me on slightly, talking like that.”
Asked by police if he got any sexual gratification from the chats, Fyfe replied: “Yes I do… chatting away to a vigilante is just a bit of fun”.
Asked the same question in court, Fyfe said: “It would be difficult to say I got none but very, very little.
“It was stringing them along, engaging it, I got carried away”.
Accused and witness branded liars
Fyfe, of Greycraigs in Cairneyhill, told the trial he was suffering from a urinary tract infection at the time of the police interview and was confused.
Sheriff James MacDonald also asked Fyfe why he continued to send sexual messages and failed to call out the person amid the possibility of being exposed to criminal proceedings.
He replied: “I don’t know, I just did it.
“I am not sure I can explain it apart from the state of mind I was in.
“I just did it and regret it now. It makes me cringe when I see these words”.
Sheriff MacDonald found him guilty of attempting to communicate indecently with an older child by repeatedly sending explicit sexual messages intentionally and for the purposes of obtaining sexual gratification or of humiliating, distressing or alarming the child.
Sheriff MacDonald described the basis by which communication took place between Fyfe and Ms Dreghorn as “fraudulent activity” on her part.
He said he was effectively being asked to accept evidence in court from a “serial professional liar” but also found Fyfe’s account in court and at times to police was a “pack of lies”.
Sentencing was deferred until March 1 to obtain background reports and first offender Fyfe was placed on the Sex Offenders Register.
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