Diving instructor with foot fetish tried to get a teenager to stand in goo

AHighland diving instructor has been placed on the sex offenders register after trying to recruit a 14-year-old babysitter to meet him in a hotel, stand in goo and rub her “sweaty feet” on his face.

Michael Bramham, 44, was caught after English police targeting online child abuse placed an advert on Gumtree purporting to be from a 14-year-old schoolgirl offering babysitting services in Newcastle and Sunderland.

A female officer posing as the girl was then contacted by a man calling himself

“Mike” – soon identified as Bramham. An “extensive” conversation took place between them, initially on Gumtree and continuing on email.

The father of one asked her if she was interested in “a modelling job” which would be “clothed and suitable for her age”, offering to pay her £100.

Prosecutor Cheryl Clark said: “He said he had kids himself and repeatedly asked her to send him photographs of herself.

“He went into details about what he would want to do with her feet.”

Bramham promised a photoshoot and suggested they could meet on a

weekday after school. Going into details of what he wanted her to do, he said: “You’ll be barefoot and bare-legged and getting gunge poured on the soles of your feet, standing in buckets of gunge and sat on a chair using your feet to pick sweets out of basins of goo.”

He also wanted some shots of her “standing in stuff”. She asked him if he wanted her to tell her mother, and Bramham emailed back: “Best not to.”

He suggested: “We’ll do a pic tonight and I’ll figure out how to get £10 to you. Just want to see what you look like and if your feet are OK.”

He said he would “get a placed booked” and wanted to do the shoot before the end of February 2020.

He emailed: “Assume you’ll be coming straight from school. What do you normally wear? When are you 15? Not important, just curious.”

Ms Clark, depute fiscal, said: “The communication continued, and ‘Mike’ told her to delete emails so her mother wouldn’t see them.”

Bramham then made several requests to photograph her bare feet and told her he had booked an apartment at a hotel in Newcastle and he would be there from 12 onwards.

He told her he could not give her his number “as the missus might pick up if you call”, adding there was “nothing to be nervous about” and she would be “treated with respect”.

Bramham, a first offender, now of Bonaly, Edinburgh, pled guilty at Falkirk Sheriff Court to attempting to communicate indecently with an older child, for the purposes of sexual gratification, on various occasions between January 20 and February 20 2020.

Sheriff Simon Collins QC deferred sentence for reports until March 17, placing Bramham on the sex offenders register.

GUNGE: Michael Bramham repeatedly asked the 14-year-old, who was actually a police officer posing as a child, to stand in “gunge”.