Coach cleared over Snapchat sex message claims

A coach accused of targeting young players with sexual Snapchat messages walked free from court yesterday after being cleared of every allegation against him.

Alexander Robertson, a suspended coach at Stirling Albion FC, had been accused of sex-messaging four youngsters – one of them now a Scottish Premiership footballer – asking the under-age teens about their love lives and joking about penis size.

Some of the boys, who were 14 or 15 at the time, claimed he had asked them to send him pictures of their “tensed” legs and other body parts. Mr Robertson said he had only once made a request for a picture of any “body part” and that was of a boy’s injured knee.

The injured knee picture was also the only photograph recovered by detectives who examined the boys’ phones.

Jurors at Falkirk Sheriff Court yesterday took little more than an hour-and-ahalf following a five-day trial to find Mr Robertson not guilty of all four charges remaining against him.

A fifth charge had already been dropped by the prosecution.

Mr Robertson, 22, an assistant coach at Scottish League Two side Albion until he was suspended last year, remained composed as he was cleared.

He said outside court the verdict was a “relief ”.