A disgraced Scottish politician gave a talk to schoolboys about 'integrity' the same month he reportedly sent dozens of inappropriate texts to a teenager.
Teachers received an email encouraging students to attend Derek Mackay's "life story" event after he put himself forward as the guest of honour, the Sunday Mail reported.
The invite was sent to schools in the Greater Glasgow area on the 8th of November last year.
The evening event several nights later, on November 12, would entail Derek Mackay sharing his "life story, reflections and advice" for young people in politics.
"Students and teachers from schools across the greater Glasgow region will be in attendance, and photograph opportunities, a Q&A and meet & greet opportunities are available," the invite read.
Over the same month, Derek sent dozens messages to a 16-year-old boy over Facebook and Instagram- just a fraction of the 270 social media messages he sent the boy over a six-month period.
Derek was forced to resign on Thursday after details surrounding his interactions with the schoolboy emerged.
The messages he sent in November included one asking "How's the rugby" and another reading "Would you want to go to a rugby reception in the Scottish Parliament?".
It is not clear whether the boy's school was invited to the “Life story of Derek Mackay” event on November 12.
Organiser Kieran, 23, has told how he initially asked Nicola Sturgeon to speak but then heard back from Mackay’s team, who said he would attend instead.
He said: “We contacted Nicola Sturgeon initially but the next thing we heard back was from Derek Mackay’s team. It became apparent it would be Mackay who would come along.
“We had a group of around 30-odd young people along with some teachers and friends of our organisation.
“A shiver goes through me when I think about it now because we work with schools across the country and my biggest priority is to make sure our people are safe.
“The last person that I thought I would have to worry about was a senior government minister and, hence, we didn’t go through disclosure checks with him – so I was pretty shocked.
“The event was to be shown to 100,000 students across the UK but I can now confirm that we won’t be putting that video out for obvious reasons. We are going to withdraw that given the situation.”
Kieran runs workshops for aspiring young entrepreneurs and did not suspect anything of Derek's conduct.
“He came in and made a speech and he spoke about acting with integrity, which he clearly wasn’t practising at the time. I have now seen that Mackay sent one of these messages the day before, which is quite worrying.”
Mackay, 42, quit the Scottish Cabinet hours before he should have been delivering Scotland’s £43billion budget, after his online behaviour emerged.
Labour’s Neil Bibby has demanded a full investigation into the school event.
He said: “Given what we now know about Derek Mackay abusing his position and reports that he was previously warned about his
behaviour, this matter should be fully investigated. Parents will rightly be asking why Derek Mackay was allowed to attend this event instead of the First Minister.
Parents have the right to know there are proper safeguards in place whenever their children are being invited to an event outside the school.”
Dad-of-two Mackay, who came out as gay in 2013, has been suspended from the SNP and the parliamentary group pending an investigation.
The teenager involved has spoken to police over the online bombardment, which happened after Mackay sent him an initial message out of the blue.
In one text exchange two days after Christmas, the senior MSP wrote: “You are looking good with that new haircut.”
The teenager replied: “Thanks, needed a change. Long hair was getting annoying.”
Mackay added: “Cute. You don’t mind compliments.”
In another text, he asked the 16-year-old, “And our chats are between us?”, before telling the boy: “Cool, then to be honest I think you are really cute.”
He contacted the teenager over a six-month period and offered to take him to a rugby game and out to dinner.
The three main opposition leaders have now called for Mackay to quit as an MSP.
Scottish Tory leader Jackson Carlaw has called Mackay’s actions “grooming”, while Labour leader Richard Leonard deemed it “predatory” behaviour.
Sturgeon has been accused of a failure of leadership after it emerged her Government demanded to know the “justification for publication” for the original story and the name of the 16-year-old boy.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney, who said he was “utterly stunned” by the revelations, insisted the Government had “simply asked for information to give us the veracity and the substance of the points that were being put to us”.
Mackay has said he “behaved foolishly” and apologised unreservedly to the teenage boy and his family.
Police have confirmed that they are “assessing the available information” on the case.
