Elgin paedophile jailed for sending ‘indecent photographs’ to decoys posing as 13-year-old girls

A man who claimed he was a ‘paedophile hunter’ has been jailed for sending ‘indecent photographs’ to what he believed to be 13-year-olds.

Ailean Kerr, of Beechfield Road in Elgin, was trapped by a vigilante group after sending photographs and communicating indecently with decoys, who were posing as 13-year-old girls.

The 48-year-old appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court where he was jailed for 15 months and placed on the Sex Offender’s Register for 10 years by Sheriff Ian Cruickshank.

His defence of conducting his own operation to catch perverts did not convince the jury, who unanimously found him guilty of communicating with what he thought were young girls for his sexual gratification.

Sheriff Cruickshank described Kerr’s defence as “pathetic”.

Kerr had initially denied two charges of attempting to cause an older child to view sexual images and attempting to communicate indecently with an older child between November 2020 and January 2021.

Sheriff Cruickshank noted on reading the social work background report that Kerr had appeared to convince the author that his intentions were honourable and not sexually-motivated and that he knew he was not talking to youngsters but adults.

This drew criticism from the judge, who said: "I have a conundrum here.

“The difficulty is that the social worker seems to have accepted his explanation which the jury rejected unanimously.

“He has not been deemed suitable for the 'Moving Forward to Change' (sex offender's) programme.

"She is in agreement that they were not sexually motivated which is exactly what he was convicted of."

Kerr's defence counsel Bill Adam told the Sheriff: "He accepts he did what he did and the jury's verdict.

“It doesn't matter what the social worker makes of his position, it is what the jury makes of his explanation and the court can proceed to sentence.

“He is deemed at low risk of offending."

The court heard the Sheriff quote from the report that the social worker accepted that Kerr was running his own scheme to trap predators and was "now moving on to expose loan sharks”.

Jailing Kerr, the Sheriff said: "You tried to advance a defence which was quite simply pathetic and that you knew that they were adults.

"Your position in the report shows that you do not accept responsibility which is not unusual.

“But it is absolutely essential that children are protected by the court from predators online."