Crown appeal extends sentence of football coach who groomed teenage player and messaged paedophile hunter

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2025] HCJAC 3
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary
• Judge:
  Lady Dorrian

LM, aged 50 to 52 at the time of the offences, was given four concurrent sentences of imprisonment, the longest of which was a seven-year extended sentence, in respect of sexual offences committed against complainer LW and a person he believed to be a young girl who was in fact a pseudonym used by a paedophile hunter. The Crown argued that the judge had erroneously treated features of the case involving LW as mitigatory and the sentence as a whole did not reflect the nature of the offending.

The appeal was heard by the Lord Justice Clerk, Lady Dorrian, with Lord Doherty and Lord Beckett. Harvey AD appeared for the Crown and Stewart KC and Russell, solicitor advocate, for the respondent.

Offences “for free”

LW had been a player in a girl’s football team of which the respondent was coach, whom he groomed via messaging apps and began taking to laybys in his car to have sex. He did this on around eight to 10 occasions between October 2021 and February 2022. The matter was reported to the police when LW’s father discovered a pregnancy test in her room. In respect of LW the respondent was charged with communicating indecently her, and with of rape and sexual assault of LW by penetration.

Between August 2022 and October 2022, the respondent exchanged around 6,000 messages with “Scarlet Speicher”, a pseudonym used by a member of a paedophile hunter group. Some of the messages by the respondent anticipated sexual contact between himself and “Scarlet”, and he was later recorded masturbating on a video call. In respect of this conduct, the respondent was charged with attempting to communicate indecently with a child, and a charge of attempting to cause a child to view a sexual image. These offences were aggravated by being committed whilst he was on bail for the first two charges.

In his appeal report, the trial judge said that he formed the impression that the respondent was “a lonely and self-pitying man” who directed his attentions at older female children because he felt they would be a more receptive audience than a mature woman, rather than because of any specific sexual interest in children. However, he saw the evidence of LW in respect of her apparent consent as a distinguishing, though not specifically mitigatory, feature of the case, and decided not to impose a cumulo sentence on all the charges.

For the Crown it was submitted that the sentence imposed did not reflect the gravity of the offending in charge 2, nor the overall gravity of the offending. It was plain that the jury had accepted that the respondent had groomed LW and had concluded that a consequence had been that there was not in fact free agreement by LW to the sexual activity. Notwithstanding his statement to the contrary, the judge had treated LW’s active participation and purported consent as mitigatory.

It was further submitted that the judge failed to take into account the fact that charges 3 and 4 were committed on bail and demonstrated a continued sexual interest in children. His decision to impose an extended sentence in charge 2 should not have affected his decision on whether to make the sentences for charges 3 and 4 concurrent to the sentence for charge 2, which had the effect that those offences were committed “for free”.

No care or concern

Lady Dorrian, delivering the opinion of the court, began with general observations on cases of grooming: “The term has been used by the court to describe a broad variety of offending, ranging from the most severe and egregious sexual offending against very young children to cases where there has been, on the face of it, enthusiastic and willing participation by the complainer. What is obvious from the cases, however, is that grooming usually consists of a pattern of manipulative behaviour which exhibits a number of very common features or hallmarks.”

She then said of the present case: “In our view the trial judge erred in his categorisation of the respondent’s conduct, and in his approach to the fact that LW had believed herself to be consenting. He also erred in failing to treat the respondent as a groomer. Further, he erroneously considered that the respondent did not fall to be treated as someone with a particular and specific sexual interest in children.”

Considering the factors meriting a longer sentence in respect of charge 2, Lady Dorrian said: “[The respondent] displayed no care or concern for LW’s sexual health and wellbeing. He compounded the physical sexual abuse by sending sexually explicit messages and images to her. He manipulated her emotionally by telling her that he would go to prison should his abuse be discovered. When she was scouted for a better football team he used his position of power over her to make her feel guilty about leaving him and his team [and] to make matters worse, the respondent was a Child Protection Officer at the football club.”

She concluded: “We are also satisfied that the effect of his making the sentences for charges 3 and 4 concurrent with the sentences for charges 1 and 2 was that charges 3 and 4 were indeed committed ‘for free’. The sentence imposed by the trial judge on charge 2 does not recognise the serious nature of the offending, for which there are no material mitigating factors.”

The court therefore quashed the custodial sentences originally imposed and substituted a cumulo extended sentence of 12 years, made up of a custodial term of 9 years and a 3-year extension period.