Edinburgh man jailed for almost two years after being caught in online paedophile sting
Man caught in online sting is jailed for almost two years
An Edinburgh man who was caught in an online paedo hunter sting has been jailed for almost two years.
Willum Webster, 35, was snared by the vigilante group after he made contact with a social media profile he believed to belong to a teenage schoolgirl.
Webster sent disgusting sexual comments and images to the account of ‘14-year-old Sophie’ including several videos of a male carrying out a solo sex act.
He also begged the child to perform a degrading sex act for him and told her what sexual positions he wanted to engage in with her.
Members of the hunter group tracked Webster down to his home in Edinburgh and live streamed the confrontation to thousands of viewers on their Facebook page in January this year.
The police were called in and Webster later moaned to officers “I can’t believe I’ve done this again” after it emerged this was his fourth conviction for sexual offending.
Webster pleaded guilty to attempting to communicate indecently with a child when he appeared from custody at the capital’s sheriff court earlier this year.
He returned to the dock for sentencing where solicitor Paul Smith, defending, said his client lives alone and had suffered a brain injury following a bicycle accident when he was a teenager.
Mr Smith said Webster had been released from a previous jail term in October last year and that “he fully accepts custody will be imposed here.”
Sheriff Iain Nicol said: “This is your fourth conviction on indictment for sex offences.
“You previously served sentences of imprisonment for sex offences in the last two years, but your behaviour continues.
“There is no alternative to a significant period of imprisonment.”
Webster was jailed for 726 days and was placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years. He was also made subject of a 10 year Sexual Harm Prevention Order.
Previously the court heard the profile of ‘Sophie’ was set up on social media by a member of the Irish paedophile hunter organisation Justice Reborn and was contacted by Webster on January 29 this year.
Fiscal depute Erin Illin said Webster was told from the outset ‘Sophie’ was 14-years-old but he had continued to send messages and videos that were “sexual in nature”.
Webster pleaded guilty to repeatedly sending written sexual communication and sexual images to who he believed was a child aged between 13 and 16 for the purposes of sexual gratification, between January 29 and 31 this year.
Webster was convicted of possessing a haul of indecent images of children aged as young as two-years-old after police raided his home in Edinburgh in September 2021.
The material found by police also included extreme pornographic images featuring an adult female engaged in sexual acts with an animal.