Forres man snared by paedophile hunting group to be sentenced
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A 48-year-old married man from Forres who was snared by a paedophile hunting group in March will find out his fate when he is sentenced in two weeks.
Kevin Johnston, of Califer Road, was due to be sentenced at Inverness Sheriff Court today but will have to wait due to "confusing and contradictory" information contained in two reports prepared about him.
Johnston, who was snared by the group after trying to get young girls to send him indecent photographs of themselves, was told "custody is uppermost in the court's mind".
Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald said: "These are serious matters and I have to be sure that I have the correct information before me before moving to sentence."
Johnston will return to court on June 7 and had his bail continued until the discrepancies between the sex offenders programme assessment and the background report are clarified.
At a previous hearing, Inverness Sheriff Court heard that the underage teenagers he targeted were actually decoys from the "Hunting Online Predators Everyday", known as HOPE.
It was only when a "sting operation" was being planned to confront Kevin Johston with their evidence that the hunters realised that he was their target in two separate decoy missions.
Court heard that, after police raided his home and seized phones and a computer, it was discovered that he had also targeted other underage girls.
Johnston admitted communicating sexually with children or people he believed to be children between March 25, 2020 and July 4, 2020.
Defence solicitor Grant Daglish said of Johnston, who was immediately placed on the Sex Offender's Register: "He was not actively searching for these age groups. The website was for over 18s.
"He has now lost everything – his relationship, his son, his circle of friends, his job."
Fiscal depute Robert Weir said that the decoys made it clear on chat and dating websites how old they were pretending to be and did not initiate sexual communications.
Mr Weir said Johnston tried to persuade the girls to send him 'naughty pictures' of themselves performing a sex act, and he sent them videos of himself performing sex acts on himself.
One user name was 'hornyhighlander', but he also used 'cantsleepmale'.
In one instance with an unidentified girl, Mr Weir said: "He continues to send sexual messages for three months trying to get a response."
Mr Weir added: "For his own safety, Johnston agreed to attend at Elgin Police Station on a voluntary basis.
"When interviewed, he admitted to engaging with females of all ages on various applications and websites sending sexual chat and videos of himself masturbating, despite some stating they were aged between 13 and 16.
"He claimed he was not sexually attracted to children, he was merely bored and did not consider the consequences of his actions. He denied any contact offences with children."
