Edinburgh child sex offender moaned to police 'I can’t believe I’ve done this again' after paedo hunter sting
Edinburgh man snared by vigilante group
An Edinburgh child sex offender moaned to police “I can’t believe I’ve done this again” after he was caught in an online paedo hunter sting.
Willum Webster was snared by a vigilante group after he sent a series of horror images and videos to who he believed to be a teenage schoolgirl.
Webster, 35, posted the disgusting material to a social media profile belonging to ‘14-year-old Sophie’ and also asked the ‘child’ to send him indecent images of herself in return. The sicko also begged ‘Sophie’ to perform a sex act for him and told her what sexual positions he wanted to carry out with her.
Webster was in fact in contact with an adult decoy belonging to the Irish organisation Justice Reborn and a group of activists confronted him at his home in the Piershill area of the capital on January 31 this year.
The city’s sheriff court was told the group live streamed the meeting at his front door on their Facebook page and the footage was watched by thousands of social media users.
Police were called to the disturbance, and while being arrested Webster confessed to the officers “I can’t believe I’ve done this again”.
Webster pleaded guilty to a charge of attempting to communicate indecently with an older child when appeared from custody at the capital court today, Tuesday, April 14.
Prosecutor Erin Illin told the court the profile of Sophie was set-up by an adult connected to the hunter group and was first contacted by Webster on January 29 this year.
The fiscal said the group were based in Ireland and are “an online activist” organisation. The adult operating the social media profile told Webster she was 14-years-old from the outset but despite this he had continued to send communication that was “sexual in nature”.
Defence agent Paul Smith told the court his client had been released from a previous prison sentence in October last year.
Sheriff Iain Nicol told the repeat offender it was “highly likely a custodial sentence will be imposed” and deferred sentence to later this month. The sheriff remanded Webster in custody and placed him on the sex offenders register on an interim basis.
Webster pleaded guilty to repeatedly sending written sexual communication and images depicting a male masturbating to who believed was a child aged between 13 and 16 for the purposes of sexual gratification, between January 29 and 31 this year.
Webster was also convicted of possessing a haul of indecent images of children aged as young as two-years-old after police raided his home in September 2021.
The material found by police also included extreme pornographic images featuring an adult female engaged in sexual acts with an animal.