A 78-year-old Dundee man has been jailed for four years and 10 months after admitting 12 child sex offences.
Thomas Hutton, of Park Road, appeared previously at Dundee Sheriff Court and admitted five charges of sexual assault of a child and one charge of engaging in sexual activity with a child.
He also admitted three charges of lewd and libidinous practices towards the child.
He further admitted a further three charges of exposing himself in a sexual manner to a child.
All of the offences took place at a property in Dundee over a nine-year period, from 2005 to last year.
His abuse only stopped in August of last year when a victim came forward.
Hutton was caught after one of the girls he targeted became upset when she was told she would be seeing him.
She told her parents of the abuse she had suffered.
That led to the other four victims coming forward before Hutton confessed.
Previously, a court heard that the abuse began in 2005 against a primary school girl.
Hutton showed the girl a film that contained scenes of a sexual nature.
He then had her perform a sex act on him.
The abuse of that girl lasted for several years, a period during which he also targeted two other girls.
He went on to abuse another girl and a boy.
Solicitor George Donnelly, defending, said that “there could be no mitigation” for the abuse Hutton carried out.
The solicitor told the court: “These offences were committed against children and betrayed the trust of those children.
“They ought to have never been committed.
“There’s nothing that can be said that begins to justify or explain it in any way.”
Hutton, a first offender, was placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.
Sentencing, Sheriff Drummond said: “This involved a high level of planning.
“It was of some concern that you had to some extent placed responsibility on the children.
“I’ve taken into account that you are a first offender and that you are 78 years old.
“It does seem clear to me that you present an ongoing risk of harm to children.”
Following his prison sentence, Hutton will be subject to a four-year extended sentence within the community.
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