Register shame of escort who had sex with boy, 14
A SCOTTISH escort who took a 14-year-old boy’s virginity in a US hotel room for £340 was put on the sex offenders’ register yesterday.
Sarah McGill, 28, who had faced up to 15 years in jail, was ordered to leave the US after being convicted of lewd or lascivious battery – known as statutory rape in the UK. Yesterday magistrates were told Edinburgh-based McGill, who was given five years’ probation by the American authorities, remains a danger to young people and must remain on the sex offenders’ register for seven years. The boy had contacted hypnotherapist McGill, who led a double life as a professional escort, online. She was arrested at the Courtyard Marriott hotel in Orlando, Florida, in April and cut a deal with prosecutors after the vic- tim told police they had sex. His father had found out what he had done and reported McGill to the authorities.
When detectives went to her hotel room they found McGill inside with a man. Cash and condoms were inside a safe. Investigators found a web profile of her in a series of racy poses in her underwear under the name ‘Sophia Belle’.
McGill said the possibility of a long sentence ‘scared her’ during an emotional two-hour interview with US police.
She claimed she felt ‘terrible’ that the victim was a child and she did not know beforehand. She said she had been travelling alone across the US and denied accepting money for sex, saying ‘there is no truth in that’. During the interview, she said: ‘He wanted to touch me. We were talking and one thing led to another.
‘That was it. I wish that I never took him upstairs. I feel like such an idiot. Whatever happened, I never had any ill intention. I’m just a very downto-earth, normal person.
‘I’ve never been in handcuffs or anything like that so it’s scary for me. I think I should leave the country and I think I should be told off. I don’t want to go to jail. I’m really scared.’
The victim told police he felt ‘guilty’ about sleeping with McGill but only did it because he felt peer pressure to lose his virginity. The escort was held in a Florida detention centre after breaching her probation before being deported.
McGill, who was not present, was put on the sex offenders’ register at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court in West London.
The move means she is effectively barred from obtaining a role in a string of trusted professions, including teaching.
The court heard McGill was ‘not objecting’ to being put on the register.
According to her social media profiles, she is a clinical hypnotherapist in Edinburgh.