The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Vigilante group snare Montrose paedophile.
COURT: Sheriff jails Angus serial offender for 10 months after police discover his online conversations
Children are off limits and you have to stay right away from anything to do with them.
SHERIFF ALASTAIR BROWN
Vigilante paedophile hunters caught the same online abuser twice in the space of five months, a court heard.
Serial sex offender Ronald Young was jailed for 10 months after police uncovered the sickening Skype chats on his laptop.
In January last year Young was jailed for 27 months after he was caught on camera by paedophile hunter group Dark Justice at Newcastle train station.
The retired bus driver, originally from Dundee, travelled there after online chats with someone posing as a 13-yearold girl.
After that incident his laptops were seized at his home in Montrose but were not examined until months after he had already been jailed for the November 2016 Dark Justice incident.
Police Scotland cyber crime experts uncovered conversations Young had had with a paedophile hunter from the Chris Fear vigilante group five months earlier.
Young, who has previous convictions for possessing indecent images of children and attempting to arrange a meet up with an underage girl at Waterloo station in London, has been handed a further 10-month prison term. A court was told the chat, which was in June 2016, saw Young messaging what he thought was a 12-year-old girl.
Depute fiscal John Adams told Dundee Sheriff Court: “I am informed it was in fact a vigilante group.”
Young further admitted possessing computer devices despite a 2014 sexual offences prevention order banning him from doing so without permission.
Mr Adams added: “Two laptops were recovered at his address when it was searched.”
Young, 65, a prisoner at HMP Perth, pled guilty to breaching a sexual offences prevention order on June 13 2016 and between October 13 2015 and December 10 2016.
Defence solicitor Sarah Russo said: “He served a 27-month sentence on the matter from Newcastle Crown Court and was liberated on January 23 this year.
“The laptops had been seized in December 2016 but were not examined until August last year. They uncovered this conversation with someone he believed to be a 12-year-old girl.”
Sheriff Alastair Brown jailed Young and placed him on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
He said: “You appear to have an interest – which may be a long-standing one – in children.
“You didn’t actually do any harm here because it was a vigilante you ended up speaking to, but that’s no credit to you because you thought you were speaking to a child. You have got to get it through your head that if you have anything to do sexually with or in relation to children under 16 you are going to keep going back to prison.
“The bottom line is children are off limits and you have to stay right away from anything to do with them.”