A former Radio clyde DJ who sexually abused a child was snared when friend of his lured him into admitting his sordid crime online.
Paedophile James Russell, 56, formerly the voice of Motherwell Football Club, met who he believed was a stranger on a swingers website.
He confessed to her how he abused a young child and the other things he wanted to the schoolgirl before showing her a photograph of the girl - unaware that his friend knew the child.
But he didn't realise that the person he was talking to was made up by a friend of his who was suspicious of him. His victim, now 16, told a jury how she had been indecently assaulted by Russell.
After a trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court, Russell was convicted of using lewd and libidinous practices and behaviour towards the girl on a number of occasions between November 2009 and November 2010 when she was between 10 and 11 years old.
He was also convicted of sexually assaulting her between December 2010 and March 2010 on a number of occasions, as well as taking indecent photographs of her.
Russell, from Govanhill, Glasgow was found guilty of possessing indecent images of children and sexual pictures of humans and animals.
A female friend of Russell's told the court she was suspicious of him and carried out an internet search. She found him on a swingers website and on reading his profile decided to probe further.
The woman created a fake profile which caught his attention and lead him to starting a conversation with her. Russell asked the woman to speak on an instant chat website instead of the website and they began talking on Yahoo messenger.
The court heard that one username Russell used on Yahoo was "Peter.fyle". During the chats with Russell he divulged his sick fantasy of what he wanted to do to a young girl he knew and was sometimes in her company. Unaware that the woman he was speaking to knew who the child was, confessed that he had molested her.
Sick Russell said: "Every time I see her in her school uniform I want to molest her so sometimes I do". He also described how he "can't resist" the child.
Excerpts of chat logs were read to the court including him saying to her that he was a "borderline paedo". He said "It's actually quite nice to admit".
Russell told the woman he was "especially turned on" by eight to 14 year olds. During one conversation Russell changed his profile picture on the Yahoo chat to one of the young girl he was talking about, in her school uniform.
In evidence the woman said: "I was very shocked, I didn't know what to do. Obviously I was upset, I knew at that point I had to take it further."
Russell also told the woman about his "illegal" porn collection. The woman later contacted the police and passed on the information from the online conversations with Russell.
In evidence Russell claimed he wanted to become sexually involved with the woman he was talking to online and thought that their conversations would advance this.
He denied any of the sexual abuse of the child. Russell shook his head after hearing the jury's verdict as he left the court room.
Sheriff Sam Cathcart deferred sentence on him until next month and placed him on the Sex Offenders' register until then.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel