Predator used police phone to call schoolboys

Fury at high-risk paedophile’s perk

A SERIAL sex offender was handed a mobile phone by police to keep him safe – but used it to contact schoolboys in defiance of a court order.

High-risk paedophile Donald Main was meant to use the phone to contact family members and to ensure police could reach him easily.

But the 24-year-old, previously jailed for child abduction, abused the perk to target new victims, breaching a supposedly tough Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO).

Main, of Elgin, Moray, now faces a form of life sentence – an Order for Lifelong Restriction – which involves a jail term from which he could only be freed with the permission of parole board bosses.

Last night, as the scale of Main’s offending was laid bare in court, opposition politicians voiced anger at the case.

Scottish Conservative chief whip John Lamont said: ‘Only in soft-touch Scotland would a sex offender be rewarded with a mobile phone instead of serving a tough sentence.

‘The public will want to know why such a prolific offender was not behind bars for longer. That’s the only way that he would have any chance of rehabilitation.’

Main began making contact with youngsters within days of being freed on December 3 last year from a two-year jail sentence imposed after he followed a 12-year-old boy home.

He used the phone to contact three boys he did not know aged between ten and 16, two of whom had featured in a local newspaper.

Main was also spotted by police officers in a park in Elgin watching teenagers using a skate park , t he High Court in Edinburgh heard.

Among his previous convictions, Main was jailed for 40 months after being convicted of abducting a 12-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Dumbarton in 2006.

He was also sentenced to 12 months’ detention in 2007 after breaching a probation order following indecent conduct towards boys aged between 11 and 13.

In relation to the latest offences, Main admitted four breaches of the SOPO and failing to comply with notification requirements.

At the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday, Lord Uist said Main seemed ‘incorrigible’ and ordered t hat he be r e manded to Aberdeen prison while a risk assessment report is prepared.