A creep from Dundee must perform unpaid work after using Snapchat to send lewd photos and videos to a ‘child’ – only to find out he was speaking to an undercover police officer.
Michael Stirling, 52, is now on the sex offenders register for five years after he previously admitted trying to indecently communicate with a child.
Dundee Sheriff Court was told how the officer posed as a child under the age of 13 on Snapchat.
Messages were exchanged with Stirling, who later sent indecent images and videos.
Fiscal depute Kate Scarborough said a search warrant was executed at Stirling’s former home on Haldane Terrace.
Various items in the background of the photos and videos were found during the search.
Stirling, of Kirkton Avenue, pled guilty to committing the offence on October 3 last year.
He returned to the dock following the preparation of social work reports and solicitor Jane Caird sad her client “accepts full responsibility”.
She added Stirling “did not have a very good reason” for committing the offence.
Stirling was made subject to a three-year community payback order, comprising supervision, a requirement to engage in the Moving Forward Making Changes programme and 120 hours of unpaid work.
999 loch hoax
A nursery school worker sparked a major search of a Perthshire loch in freezing conditions for an overturned kayak by making a bizarre hoax 999 call. Clair Frost, 35, denied sounding a false alarm from a landline at Killin nursery at Loch Tay but her “distinctive, higher-pitched, childlike” tones were identified by two colleagues and a police officer who had all known her for years.
Prison contraband
Three men have been sentenced at Perth Sheriff Court after each admitting stashing contraband within the city’s jail.
County lines dealer Brandon Collins, from Manchester, previously admitted having a phone in the jail on April 29 this year.
After being searched, he was led to a body scanner and handed over the device.
Collins, 25, was planning to return to the English city following his scheduled release from custody in September.
However, Sheriff Alison McKay imposed a consecutive sentence of two months.
Mark Moore, now at liberty and residing in West Park in Abernethy, also admitted having a phone behind bars on November 2 last year.
The 34-year-old had stashed the mobile in a curtain in his cell.
Moore was released early from his sentence, imposed for threatening to rape a police officer’s six-year-old daughter, as part of an emergency government scheme.
Sheriff McKay ordered him to complete 80 hours of unpaid work.
Jonathan Whyte, of Orchardgate in Cupar, also now at liberty, admitted having an illicit SIM card on February 7 last year.
Sheriff McKay ordered him to complete 90 hours of unpaid work after the 25-year-old had been given three months to be of good behaviour in the community, which he managed.
Family cannabis
A cannabis “specialist” told police he set up a cultivation at his father’s business to help family members with terminal illnesses. Police uncovered the illegal drug farm after raiding the premises at Forestmuir Sawmill, near Forfar. Alexander Robertson pled guilty to producing the Class B drug and told police it was for personal use and medicinal purposes and he took no payment.
‘Taking the piss’
Daniel McNeil appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court to admit assaulting another male while on bail in Leven on June 25 in 2022.
The 19-year-old, of Castle Crescent in Kennoway, was acting with another person when he seized his target by the body, headbutted him and repeatedly kicked and punched him on the body, leaving him injured on Branch Street.
Fiscal depute Charlotte Allan said McNeil accused his victim of “taking the piss out of him” at 3.30am, before the attack.
The victim suffered a swollen nose and an ambulance was called but he did not require further treatment.
Background reports were ordered before sentencing on September 24.
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