Falkirk sex offender (37) arranged to meet '14-year-old boy'

Chrtistopher Crawford (37) appeared at Falkirk Sheriff Court on Thursday, having admitted sending sexual communications to someone he believed to be 14 from his home in Falkirk between May 6 and June 9.

Sean Maher, procurator fiscal depute, said: “The 35-year-old witness from the Wolf Pack, in his role as a decoy posed as a 14-year-old boy on a wide variety of internet applications, including Grindr.

“On May 6 he received two messages from the accused on Grindr. The witness said he was 14-years-old. The accused identified himself by the name ‘Jason’. The witness said he thought he was gay and the accused responded he thought he was gay when he was around 13 or 14.

Crawford sent two explicit images to the witness – who he assumed was a 14-year-old boy – and the second image also showed his face.

A decoy image was then sent to Crawford of a 13-year-old boy dressed in a wedding suit.

“The witness also mentioned he had school work to do and that he liked Disney Plus,” added Mr Maher.

Things moved on when Crawford gave the witness his mobile phone number and the two of them started communicating on WhatsApp. At this time the witness noticed the accused’s name was not Jason, it was Chris.

Then Crawford sent the witness pictures of his house and from these images the witness and his Wolf Pack colleagues were able to ascertain where Crawford lived.

Crawford then sent the witness a picture of a bath mat with the words ‘Get Naked’ on it and his messages became even more suggestive and sexual in nature and he sent further explicit images.

On June 7, Crawford arranged a meeting with the witness at Glasgow Green at 5.30pm on June 9.

Police were informed of this by the Wolf Pack and Crawford was arrested.

Mr Maher said: “He told police he hadn’t done anything wrong adding ‘I didn’t do anything, they led me in. I knew when I found out his age, I shouldn’t have done what I done’.”

A search of Crawford’s premise uncovered the bath mat he had posted picture of.

The court heard Crawford had “no experience of jail” and the only thing on his record was a breach of the peace back in 2002.

Since committing the offence he had lost his employment and his long term partner.

Sheriff Derek Hamilton said: “I’m satisfied on balance I can deal with this matter with a non-custodial sentence.”

He placed Crawford on a supervised community payback order for 18 months with the condition he complete 150 hours unpaid work within 12 months. He was also required to place himself on the sex offenders register for five years and participate in offence focused work.