Failed Scots footballer tried to meet children he groomed online for sex

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A failed footballer who tried to meet five children he groomed online has been sent to prison for two years and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for a decade.Predatory paedophile Ewan Rawlings pestered the young girls to meet him for sex - unaware all five of the accounts were being operated by undercover police officers.Sheriff William Wood said: "Elements of this trial were extremely disturbing and the jury formed the view that, whatever your position was, they did not believe your position that this was no more than role play.

You believed you were engaging with children aged 13 to 16. It was not just one or two, but five separate undercover officers posing online as female teenagers."The fact there were so many in a relatively short space of time is somewhat bewildering.

Either you were extremely unlucky being identified by five officers, or alternatively, you were seeing to make contact with so many females online that you happened upon these five."Rawlings sent dozens of messages to the decoy accounts and went as far as speaking to the "children" on the phone to check they were genuine.

But when he discovered he had been duped by specialist police officers, Rawlings claimed to jurors that he had only been engaging in fantasy role play.However, the jury did not believe his excuse and found him guilty of a string of grooming offences after a trial at Perth Sheriff Court.