Four year sentence for Conon Bridge man who demanded naked images from teenagers

A ROSS-SHIRE man who paid two teenage girls hundreds of pounds a month to satisfy his foot fetish was sentenced to four years in prison, with half of it to be served under licence in the community.

Keith Mowat, of Sellar Place, Conon Bridge, had previously appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court and admitted a total of five charges whereby he sent the 13 year old and 17 year old photos of his penis and paid them up to £750 a month for sexual services for photos of their feet, knees and hair.

Mowat had previously been ordered to take part in a sex offenders' rehabilitation programme and his solicitor advocate, Shahid Latif, told Sheriff Sara Matheson: "He did not learn his lessons from his previous participation.

"He is a socially isolated individual who had been accessing adult sites and then moved into other sites and this led to him contacting these individuals. He can't offer a rational explanation for why he did it."

Sheriff Matheson told Mowat that due to his previous record and the gravity of the offences, there was no alternative to a lengthy custodial sentence.

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She said the first part of the sentence would be back-dated to July 18 last year when he was remanded. The second half would be on licence and if he breached the terms of it, he would go back to jail.

Mowat was also placed on the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely.

Fiscal depute Alison Young had told Sheriff Gary Aitken at the earlier hearing that both girls did not request or want the indecent images of Mowat and refused his demand to send him naked images of themselves, although he offered £100 a photo.

But the youngest victim relented and sent him pictures of her bottom and one photo of her breasts, the prosecutor added.

One charge related to Mowat threatening or disclosing some of those images to others. Mrs Young told the court of the girl's reaction on learning the photos had been distributed: "She felt her heart literally drop. She was embarrassed and stressed."

Police Scotland became aware of the 32 year old’s perverse activities after colleagues in Norfolk found out about the illicit Snapchat communications Mowat conducted from his Sellar Place home in Conon Bridge which occurred between April and July last year.

"The police executed a search warrant for his house and the accused was located in his bedroom in the property. He was lying in a seated position on the bed, under the covers, holding his mobile device. The phone was seized."