Dalkeith pervert offered cash for naked pictures of schoolgirl

A pervert who targeted 20 vulnerable children online and demanded they send him nude pictures has avoided being sent to prison.

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Liam Nolan attempted to get one boy to take photographs of his young brother in the bath and offered cash to a 12-year-old girl for naked images after grooming her for two years.

Depraved Nolan, 31, also fantasised about “burning and mutilating” one boy and made contact with a Filipino adult and suggested he could drug and rape the man’s daughter.

Paedophile Liam Nolan dodged a prison sentence for his crimes.

Police raided his former home in Dalkeith, Midlothian and found online chat logs along with more than 2800 child abuse images.

Nolan, who was working as a call handler with Scottish Widows at the time, had downloaded images of adults sexually abusing children including newborn babies.

He had internet search terms on his phone including “sleeping pills for kids” and “best app to monitor kids phone without them knowing”.

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Nolan pleaded guilty to sending and receiving sexual images and sending sexual written communication to children, and to possessing indecent images of children when he appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

Sheriff Robert Fife told him: “This was a horrible case and your behaviour was dreadful.

“I wrote down in my notes that the case was disturbing, your behaviour was controlling of vulnerable people [and] you were giving young people instructions and you were manipulating.”

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Nolan was sentenced to a two-year supervision order and told to complete 300 hours of unpaid work as a direct alternative to custody.

He was also placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for five years and banned from having contact with anyone under the age of 17.

Police raided the home in December 2019 and seized computer equipment and phones that were found to contain 2836 indecent images of children - including 760 rated as Category A.

Officers also found online chat logs where Nolan had been in contact with 20 children.

One victim was said to have been coerced into taking pictures of his six-year-old brother while a second was being paid to send him images of herself.

A further chat with an 11-year-old child saw Nolan say: “Hmm. A bit young but I don’t really care.”

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