The former head coach of an Inverness girl’s football team has been found guilty of raping a 15-year-old.
Lee Murray denied the charge and had lodged a special defence of consent.
The 53-year-old was also found guilty of communicating indecently with an older child and causing them to look at a sexual image, attempting to communicate indecently with a child and attempting to cause a child to look at a sexual image.
He was found guilty by majority on the rape charge and unanimously guilty on all the others.
Watch: the moment Murray was caught by paedophile hunters
The trial at the High Court in Inverness heard how Murray took the teenage girl to locations in and around Inverness for sex in his car.
The pair also exchanged graphic sexual messages which were read to the jury in the course of the evidence.
In one, Murray wrote: “My wee girl you are so cute I can’t f***ing wait to see you babe.”
Cyber crimes investigators also recovered a number of photographs that Murray appeared to have sent, including one which showed him in a state of arousal and another where he was topless with his tongue out.
Other messages, however, struck a different tone, with Murray telling the teen: “I hate every minute and every second of every day because I know I go down if we get caught.”
He also told her: “As much as it is so dam (sic) wrong we also know we have something special between us.”
The father of Murray’s victim also gave evidence during the trial and told the jury that she was left “emotionally distraught” when he spoke to her.
Snared by paedophile hunters
The court heard that the father had learned about his daughter’s contact with Murray from a third party.
Asked how she had reacted, the father said: “[She] was emotionally distraught. She was crying, she was hysterical, she was on the floor. She was completely broken.”
The jury also heard from a woman who was contacted online by Murray while posing as a 14-year-old girl.
The 40-year-old – who worked with a voluntary child protection group – had set up a decoy profile on the app Wink, which markets itself as a tool for “dating and friends”.
Murray, then 51, contacted the profile and was immediately told that he was speaking with a 14-year-old named Scarlet.
After moving the conversation to WhatsApp, Murray sent images of Loch Ness and said: “No, I am not the monster; well I could be.”
The pair discussed potentially meeting – both in the Highlands or near her home in the south of England.
The woman passed her dossier on to the head of her organisation and a “sting” was then arranged with a similar group in Glasgow, who confronted Murray in the street before passing their evidence to police.
During the video – which was played for the jury – Murray told the volunteers: “I told myself I shouldn’t be doing it” and called his actions “disgusting”.
Defence counsel Mark Stewart KC had urged the jury to dismiss the rape charge on the basis that the girl was consenting.
He said: “It is clear that she was actively participating. It is clear that she was willingly participating. It is clear that she was consenting.”
He said Murray accepted that he had sexual intercourse with the girl, but told them “this is not rape – I ask you to reject that proposition”.
In his own closing speech to the jury, the prosecutor, advocate depute Adrian Stalker, said: “She said that she thought the sex was consensual […] whether there was free agreement on her part is another matter.”
Mr Stalker drew the jurors’ attention to the age difference between the pair.
The former head coach of Thistle Girls FC was remanded in custody and will be sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh next month.
