A 63-year-old Montrose man has been jailed after being snared by a pair of vigilante paedophile hunters in Newcastle.
Ronald Young, a former bus driver in Dundee, sent explicit messages involving bestiality to what he thought was a 13-year-old girl he had befriended on a chat site before travelling 200 miles from his home in Angus to meet her on Tyneside.
But he had been tricked by paedophile hunters and was instead arrested when he arrived in Newcastle in December last year.
Newcastle Crown Court heard Young claimed he was just 18 and called himself “sportsteacher”.
He said he wanted the supposed schoolgirl to meet his friends and talked about a sex act involving his pet.
Young, who was already on the sex offenders’ register due to past convictions, travelled by train from his home in Scotland to meet his young victim and even sent a “selfie” while on his way.
He was confronted on arrival at Newcastle Central Station by members of Dark Justice, who trawl the internet to expose paedophile activity.
Young tried to get away but was held by the hunters until the police arrived.
The anonymous two-man team handed over a file of evidence about Young’s activities to the officers.
Prosecutor Jonathan Devlin told Newcastle Crown Court: “He was on a chat site. Dark Justice made it clear almost immediately he was speaking to a 13-year-old-girl.
“The defendant said he was 18, then later changed to 28. The defendant is, in fact, 63.”
Young was convicted of having indecent images in 2013 and given a community order with a sex offender programme requirement.
In 2014 he was given a suspended jail term for arranging to meet an underage girl at Waterloo station in London. He was made to undergo a further programme and given a sexual harm prevention order.
Young, of Westwood Walk, Montrose, Scotland, admitted attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming and breach of a sexual harm prevention order in relation to the latest offences.
The court heard despite the intensive intervention he has undergone, he remains a “high risk of sexual reconviction”.
Judge Edward Bindloss sentenced him to a total of two years and three months behind bars.
The judge told him; “You clearly thought she was a 13-year-old female.
“You spoke about what you were going to do when you met with her. You were grooming her.
“You planned to carry out sexual acts on meeting her.
“The sexual offenders programme has not helped you resist this sort of behaviour. The sexual harm prevention order has not stopped you talking in the way described.”
Jane Foley, defending, said the only mitigation she could properly advance was Young’s guilty pleas.
