Man denies sending sexual messages

A date for a legal debate was yesteday set on the competency of charges which allege that a Stirling man sent messages of a sexual nature to someone he believed to be a female aged between 13 and 16.

Jack Millar, 21, Strathmore Drive, faces two charges under the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009 in which he is alleged to have sent messages and images of a sexual nature to someone he believed to be a child aged between 13 and 16, but who was in fact an adult pretending to be a child.

He is also charged, under the Protection of Children and Prevention of Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2005, of attempting to meet a person aged under 16 with the intention of engaging in unlawful sexual behaviour with that person.

All the charges relate to a period between mid-December 2018 and early January this year.

At Stirling Sheriff Court yesterday (Thursday) Sheriff Simon Collins upheld a defence motion for a legal debate on the competency of these three charges given that no actual child was involved in the allegations.

He set the debate on these threee charges for March 21 – and continued a further charge without plea which alleges that Millar had behaved in a threatening and abusive manner to a woman purporting to be a child aged 14, uttering threats of sexual violence.