A paedophile who wanted to meet an underage girl for sex at a swimming pool has avoided jail.
Christopher Kelly thought he was messaging a 12-year-old girl, sending her lewd images and inappropriate texts.
But the 27-year-old perv had been duped by a vigilante group posing as teenage girls.
Last week he walked free from court.
Paedophile Kelly had attempted to arrange to meet one of the ‘girls’ at Hamilton Water Palace only to be snared by paedophile hunter group ‘Protecting All Little Souls,’ who exposed him in a live Facbook video.
Yet despite his efforts to steal the innocence of supposed minors, Sheriff Thomas Miller punished Kelly with a community-based sentence.
That saw him sentenced to three-years supervision and placed on the sex offenders’ register for the same duration.
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Sheriff Miller said Kelly did not have an “unusual interest” in adolescent children and said that – because of his own mental limitations – was communicating with those he thought were at his “own level”.
Kelly, of Liddell Grove in The Murray, previously admitted sending messages and pictures of a sexual nature to two teens he thought were girls under the age of 16 between April 1 and July 16 last year.
He also admitted arranging to meet one of the ‘girls’ with the intention of engaging in unlawful sexual activity.
Vish Kathuria, prosecuting, previously told the court Kelly had a partner of his own but told a decoy posing as a 12-year-old that he “wanted a relationship, someone I can be with for the rest of my life”.
The beast went on to send explicit messages and photos, and asked repeatedly if the ‘girl’ would send him naked pictures of herself.
During this time Kelly also believed he was communicating online with a 13-year-old girl who he offered to give a body massage to and told it would be “okay” to have sex because “no one would know”.
Sick Kelly initially told police he had been hacked before admitting that he was the one making contact with the ‘girls’. Court previously heard Kelly has learning difficulties.
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On Friday, Sheriff Millar told court that Kelly was “more the level of the people he believed he was communicating with”
rather than an adult, choosing to impose an extended supervision order rather than a custodial sentence.
He added: “This is an unusual situation.
“You have your own difficulties, brought out in the psychiatric report which states you do not have an unusual interest in adolescents.
“You were communicating more at your own level.”
Kelly was told he could not have any contact with children under the age of 16, unless it was by chance or under the supervision of an adult.
He is also restricted in having Internet-enabled devices unless they have the capacity to store a search history that cannot be deleted.
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