Paedophile teacher pretended to be own mother on Facebook
A TEACHER who was placed on the Sex Offenders Register after sexually harassing a 13-year-old pupil online used a fake identity to allow him back on Facebook, a court heard yesterday.
Kyle Young posed as a woman so that he could continue using the social networking site for two years after his initial conviction for preying on the schoolgirl.
The former technology studies teacher set up an account online in the name of his 60-year-old mother, Sarah Young.
The 29-year-old’s deception was uncovered when police officers made a check-up visit on him. He told them he had been using the account regularly, Hamilton Sheriff Court heard yesterday.
It was at the same court Young pleaded guilty in June 2013 to sending sexual messages to the girl two years earlier, when she was only 13.
He had been teaching at Clyde Valley High School in Wishaw, Lanarkshire, when he contacted the girl on Facebook and sent messages calling her ‘stunning’ and ‘sexy’.
Young asked the teenager to send him pictures of herself, but instead she reported him. When she told Young what she was going to do, he claimed his social media account had been hacked.
He escaped a jail sentence after a sheriff imposed a three-year community payback order and put him on the Sex Offenders Register for three years. He was later struck off the teaching register.
Yesterday, Young, from Motherwell, Lanarkshire, admitted breaching notification requirements of the register by failing to disclose to police he was using another name on Facebook between April 2013 and March 2015.
Fiscal depute Imran Bashir told the court: ‘The accused was placed on the register and registered his name as Kyle Young.
‘On March 12, 2015, police officers made a check-up visit to the accused. He informed the police witnesses he had been using a Facebook account in the name of Sarah Young, who I understand is the accused’s mother. He showed them how he had set up the account and said he had been using it regularly.
‘On March 16, 2015, the accused went to a police station where he registered the name and completed a registration form. At that point he was cautioned and charged. The lack of registration of the name makes this an offence.’
Mr Bashir added that there was no evidence found that Young had sent any illegal messages while using the fake Facebook page.
The teenager who initially reported Young said after his first trial that she was disappointed he had not been dealt with more severely but proud that her actions had put an end to his teaching career.
Speaking after he was sentenced, she said: ‘I think the sentence was soft and he is lucky not to be going to jail. I expected a tougher punishment. But I don’t regret letting people know what he was up to.
‘It wasn’t right that he was behaving like that on Facebook and he had to be stopped. I didn’t want everything I went through with the police and school and everything to be for nothing.
‘I’m glad I came forward and I’d tell anyone else who is in my position to do the same. It didn’t go very far with me, but it could have been worse.’
Her mother said at the time: ‘I am disgusted that he wasn’t sent to prison. He was just let off and we are not happy about that. He was in a position of power and trust.’
Sheriff Thomas Millar deferred sentence on Young for his latest offence until next month.
‘He had been using it regularly’