A Highland diving instructor has been placed on the sex offenders’ register after trying to recruit a 14-year-old babysitter to meet him in a hotel, stand in goo and rub her “sweaty feet” on his face.
Michael Bramham, 44, was caught after English police targeting online child abuse placed an advert on Gumtree purporting to be from a 14-year-old schoolgirl offering babysitting services in Newcastle and Sunderland.
A female officer posing as the girl was then contacted by a man calling himself “Mike” – soon identified as Bramham.
An “extensive” conversation took place between them, initially on Gumtree and continuing on email.
The father-of-one asked her if she was interested in “a modelling job” which would be “clothed and suitable for her age”, offering to pay her £100.
Prosecutor Cheryl Clark said: “He said he had kids himself and repeatedly asked her to send him photographs of herself.
“He went into details about what he would want to do with her feet.”
‘Best not to tell your mother’
Bramham promised a photoshoot and suggested they could meet on a weekday after school.
Going into details of what he wanted her to do, he said: “You’ll be barefoot and bare-legged and getting gunge poured on the soles of your feet, standing in buckets of gunge, and sat on a chair using your feet to pick sweets out of basins of goo.”
He said he wanted to photograph her lying face down with her big toes “stuck in lots of goo” and with “stuff being poured or spread on the soles of your feet”.
He also wanted some shots of her “standing in stuff”.
She asked him if he wanted her to tell her mother, and Bramham emailed back: “Best not to.”
He suggested: “We’ll do a pic tonight and I’ll figure out how to get £10 to you. Just want to see what you look like and if your feet are OK.”
He said he would “get a placed booked” and wanted to do the shoot before the end of February 2020.
He emailed: “Assume you’ll be coming straight from school. What do you normally wear? When are you 15? Not important, just curious.”
Ms Clark, depute fiscal, said: “The communication continued and ‘Mike’ told her to delete emails so her mother wouldn’t see them.”
Bramham then made several requests to photograph her bare feet and told her he had booked an apartment at a hotel in Newcastle and he would be there from 12 onwards.
‘Can you do a thumbs up with your big toe?’
Ms Clark said: “He made reference to her doing ‘extra bits for money’.
“This would involve him smelling her feet and placing his nose between her toes and her rubbing her sweaty feet in her face.”
Bramham asked: “Can you curl your toes up really tight, like clench them like a fist? Are you any good at picking things up between your toes? Can you do a thumbs up with your big toe, like curl your toes up but stick your big toes up?”
He said if she was “still interested in discussing some other bits” he could pay her £160 to £200.
He said: “Will pay £160 as well as the gunge shoot if I can smell your bare feet for half an hour, face pressed into your soles and nose between your toes and you rub them in my face for a bit.
“If they’re sweaty that’s better. If you’ve had PE at school don’t wear socks under your trainers and bunk off straight after without changing your shoes.”
He told her he could not give her his number “As the missus might pick up if you call” adding there was “nothing to be nervous about” and she would be “treated with respect”.
Police swoop on home
The communications were traced to Bramham’s home in Glenbo Drive, Denny, Stirlingshire and at 8am on June 10 2020 the property was visited by officers with a warrant.
Bramham’s wife was there with a young child but he was away working and was arrested at 4.30pm that day on a sea pier at Achiltibuie, near Ullapool.
He remarked to police: “I had a feeling the person I was speaking to wasn’t real.”
Bramham, a first offender, now of Bonaly, Edinburgh, pleaded guilty at Falkirk Sheriff Court to attempting to communicate indecently with an older child, for the purposes of sexual gratification, on various occasions between January 20 and February 20 2020.
Defence solicitor Gary McAteer reserved mitigation and Sheriff Simon Collins QC deferred sentence for reports until March 17 placing Bramham on the sex offenders’ register.
According to the website of Achiltibuie-based Atlantic Diving Services, Bramham, a commercial scuba diver, PADI assistant instructor and first aid instructor, “runs diving expeditions around Scotland’s Western and Northern Isles and enjoys filming underwater”.
