A sales executive bombarded a pretty young lapdancer with creepy messages.
Cameron Marshall, 57, of Fife, targeted the 24-year-old using the instant messenger app Kik, which lets users hide behind pseudonyms and was named this year by American law enforcers as “the problem app of the moment”.
Hiding behind the made-up name “Sandy McNeil”, he began by asking how she was, and “immediately went on to ask if she had her own place.”
Prosecutor Claire Bremner told a court: “As these messages were coming from a person not recognised by her, she asked who this person was.
“He replied he did not want to provide his name or details but stated he was ‘an older guy with kids etc., who wants to get to know you better’.”
He then proceeded to send messages in which he told her he had met her 15 years before and had “watched her grow up … innocently”.
The depute fiscal went on: “Despite having received no sexual advances from her, the accused continued to message her, saying ‘U need 2 tell me how 2 behave’ and ‘I am willing to play ur game, ur rules, if u promise never 2 tell anyone’.”
Stirling Sheriff Court was told that Marshall’s victim was by now “extremely concerned” and messaged back, “ur being a creep”.
Eventually, she confided in a friend who showed her a picture of a man posing online as “Sandy McNeil”, and she recognised him as Marshall, the almost-60 father of someone she knew.
Marshall, of Lord Gambier Wharf, Kirkcaldy, pleaded guilty to stalking the woman by sending her 132 Kik messages between July 18 and 25 2014.
In a separate offence also involving Kik, he further admitted stalking a former lover, with whom he’d had a year-long relationship.
He Kik messaged her, phoned her, and left messages even though she’d made it clear she wanted nothing more to do with him. The pestering occurred between August and November 2014.
Sheriff William Gilchrist placed Marshall under social work supervision for three years, on the sex offender’s register for three years, and also made him subject to a three-year non-harassment order, banning him from contacting either woman.