Foot 'deviant' - who tried to get 'girl, 14,' to rub sweaty feet in his face - avoids jail

Michael Bramham, 44, was caught after police targeting child abuse placed an advert on Gumtree purporting to be from a schoolgirl offering babysitting services.

A female police officer posing as the girl was then contacted by Bramham.

During an "extensive" online conversation, the father-of-one asked her if she was interested in "a modelling job", offering to pay her £100.

Prosecutor Cheryl Clark said: "He repeatedly asked her to send him photographs of herself.

"He went into details about what he would want to do with her feet."

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Bramham, who is from Denny but now lives in Edinburgh, promised a photoshoot, and suggested they could meet on a weekday after school.

He said: "You'll be barefoot and bare-legged and getting gunge poured on the soles of your feet, standing in buckets of gunge, and sat on a chair using your feet to pick sweets out of basins of goo."

He said he wanted to photograph her lying face down with her big toes "stuck in lots of goo" and with "stuff being poured or spread on the soles of your feet".

He emailed: "Assume you'll be coming straight from school."

He told her to delete their emails so her mother wouldn't see them.

Bramham then made several requests to photograph her bare feet and told her he had booked an apartment at a hotel in Newcastle.

Ms Clark said: "He made reference to her doing 'extra bits for money'.

"This would involve him smelling her feet and placing his nose between her toes and her rubbing her sweaty feet in her face."

He said: "Will pay £160 as well as the gunge shoot if I can smell your bare feet for half an hour, face pressed into your soles and nose between your toes and you rub them in my face for a bit.

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"If they're sweaty that's better. If you've had PE at school don't wear socks under your trainers and bunk off straight after without changing your shoes."

The communications were traced to Bramham's home in Denny, Stirlingshire, and at 8am on June 10th (2020) the property was visited by officers with a warrant.

Bramham's then wife but he was away working, and was arrested at 4.30pm that day on a sea pier at Achiltibuie, near Ullapool.

Bramham, a first offender, now of Bonaly, Edinburgh, pleaded guilty at Falkirk Sheriff Court to attempting to communicate indecently with an older child, for the purposes of sexual gratification, on various occasions between January 20th and February 20th 2020.

Sheriff Simon Collins QC placed Bramham - a commercial scuba diver, PADI assistant instructor and first aid instructor – under social work supervision, and on the sex offenders' register, for two years. He also imposed restrictions on the way he can access the Internet.

He said: "It's certainly very odd behaviour - odd as in deviant - and obviously criminal behaviour."

He warned him: "This will be an alternative to a custodial sentence - if you breach this order you're likely to be sent to prison."