A child molester from Fife who subjected a girl to sexual assaults and rape when she was under 12 is behind bars.
Lee Johnston committed a catalogue of sex crimes including publishing and distributing obscene images and videos of youngsters.
Johnston, 33, continued taking indecent images of children at addresses in Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes after he was granted bail and failed to comply with a condition of his release that banned him having unsupervised contact with minors.
He denied a string of offences during a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh but was convicted of 13 charges he faced, including rape, sexual assault, possessing and making indecent images of children, causing underage children to participate in sexual activity and breaching bail.
Judge Alistair Watson told the sex offender the charges were, in some aspects, “of a gross nature”.
The judge placed Johnston on the Sex Offenders Register and remanded him in custody for the preparation of a background report and risk assessment ahead of sentencing next month.
He told jurors that he was conscious that it was “a sensitive and difficult case”.
Offending across Fife
Johnston’s offending began in 2011 when he acquired child abuse images and started molesting a girl in Leven and Anstruther.
On an occasion between October 2011 and October the following year he also subjected a boy who was aged five to an assault at a pond in Leven after telling him to pull down his trousers.
Johnston performed sex acts on the child and asked him to carry out acts on him.
During the offending, which continued up until 2019, he also told a girl he knew adults and children who wanted to have sex with her for money.
