A man who has a fetish for tights was caught in a paedophile hunter sting after he contacted social media profiles which he believed to belong to two children.

Alan Langmuir sent scores of sexual messages to ‘12-year-old Megan’ and ‘14-year-old Mollie’ on the Facebook Messenger app over a three month period last year.

Langmuir, 64, asked the victims to send pictures of themselves wearing tights, encouraged them to carry out solo sex acts and posted one child an image of an erect penis. He also quizzed the girls on their school uniforms, sent links to porn sites and repeatedly told them they were “pretty” and “beautiful”.

But Langmuir was eventually caught out after he asked ‘Mollie’ if she would send him a pair of her tights to his home and he posted his address on the app.

It then emerged he was in fact in contact with adult decoys who had set up the social media profiles in a bid to snare online predators and members of the paedophile hunter group confronted him at his home.

Alan Langmuir outside Edinburgh Sheriff Court | Alexander Lawrie

placeholder image — Alan Langmuir outside Edinburgh Sheriff Court | Alexander Lawrie

The sting was live streamed to the Scotland Child Protection Team Against Sexual Abuse Facebook page and has been viewed more than 32,000 times.

Langmuir, of Leith, was arrested and charged and later told officers he thought he was involved in “role play” with an adult and didn’t believe he was in contact with a child. He appeared at the capital’s sheriff court on Thursday and pleaded guilty to attempting to communicate indecently with ‘Megan’ by commenting on her physical appearance, asking what she was wearing and making reference to his sexual fetish between August and October last year.

Langmuir also admitted to sending an image of an erect penis to ‘Mollie’, encouraging her to masturbate and made reference to his fetish between September and November last year.

Sheriff Christopher Dickson placed him on the sex offenders register on an interim basis and deferred sentence for a social work report and a restriction of liberty order assessment to next month.

Fiscal depute Clare Green told the court the hunter group had set up both online profiles using decoy names and Langmuir first made contact with them at around 10pm on August 15 last year.

The court heard he sent numerous messages to the account telling the ‘12-year-old child’ she was “cute” and “pretty” and asked if she “ever got horny”.

He posted a comment stating “I’ve just got a thing about tights - is that bad” and quizzed her on the colour of her underwear. Langmuir then contacted the profile of ‘14-year-old Mollie’ and soon began asking to see pictures of her feet in tights.

The depraved contact also saw Langmuir send an image of a penis and asking if wearing tights was part of her school uniform. He also posted links to pornography websites and sent his address to her so the child could post him a pair of her tights.

The court was told the hunter group arrived at Langmuir’s home at around 6.30pm on November 22 last year and police were soon contacted. The fiscal said during a police interview Langmuir had told officers: “I thought this was all just role play. I didn’t actually believe the girl was under 16.”