A Fife sex offender has been re-sentenced to prison time after breaching his community sentence order four times.
Graeme Laing was given a community payback order (CPO) in May 2023 after admitting a string of online sex offences.
These included sending explicit photos to adults posing as youngsters and downloading child abuse material.
His CPO and period on the sex offenders register were due to last two years.
However, the offender, now aged 30, was locked up after admitting breaching the sentence a fourth time.
Original offences
Two years ago, Laing – then of Cardenden – wound up in court for a slew of perverted offending.
Laing believed he was communicating online with children aged between 13 and 16 named but in reality, he was speaking to two adults.
He sent a sexual photograph and video to one of the decoys and another explicit image to the other.
In both cases he sent them written messages of a sexually explicit nature.
The offending took place at an address in Lime Grove, Methil, in June and July 2021 when he was aged 26.
Laing previously admitted two charges of attempting to cause a child to look at a sexual image and two counts of attempting to communicate indecently with a child.
Between June 28 and August 21 of that year, having been given an undertaking to appear at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, Laing breached a condition not to contact anyone under the age of 18 by sending messages to one of the “girls” and arranging to meet her in Bolton.
He also admitted a sixth charge of taking or permitting to be taken or making indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children, on August 20.
Back in the dock
Graeme Laing, now sporting a shaved head and bushy beard, was brought from prison to court in Kirkcaldy on Thursday, the day before his two-year community payback order was due to end.
His lawyer Morgan Wilson said: “Mr Laing was remanded on April 19 for a further breach of his CPO.
“He’s suffered suicidal thoughts in custody and made that known to officers.
“He remains vulnerable in the custodial setting.
“Mr Laing has accepted four breaches of his CPO. We went just over a year with no breaches whatsoever.
“Ultimately, his original order was due to expire tomorrow.
“He advised he would be more than willing to attend Moving Forward To Change.
“He would also like to go back to some education, he did leave school with no qualifications.
“Whilst being in the custodial setting, it’s given him a bit of a wake-up call.
“The simple fact that he’s spend the last few weeks in custody has been a big deterrent for him.
“Mr Laing does receive support. He has carers who come in and support him with day to day tasks.
“Over the last eight months, he’s moved property four times.”
Court ‘bent over backwards’
Sheriff Paul Ralph replaced Laing’s CPO with a 10-week prison sentence, backdated to last month.
He also placed Laing on the sex offenders register for seven years.
The sheriff told him: “You’ve had four chances at this order – that is the court bending over backwards.
“You put yourself at risk with some of your behaviour.
“I’ve taken the view that I’m going to draw a line under this today.
“I’m not going to continue with supervision, I’m going to impose custody.”
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