Self-proclaimed paedophile hunter jailed after being caught with abuse images

A self-proclaimed paedophile hunter who used a young girl’s phone to solicit sick child abuse image has been jailed.

Stevan Hogg took the girl’s phone and went into an online messaging service where he had a succession of horrific child porn images sent to him by another user.

The girl later discovered the phone was missing. She looked through it and found the disturbing messages before immediately alerting her mother.

Police attended and saw the five pictures then analysed computers found at the address and discovered “concerning” web searches for child porn terms.

Hogg then told cops he would “lead paedophiles on” on the internet before “pretending he was a police officer to scare them”.

Hogg was sentenced to three months in jail for the child abuse images offences.

Jailing Hogg for a total of 15-and-a-half months to include a number of other non-sexual offences including shoplifting, Sheriff Alastair Carmichael told him: “I have come to the conclusion that every opportunity you have been given you have thrown back. A community disposal would be wasted on you.”

See Thursday’s Courier for more on this story.