Highland swimming pool lifeguard who asked under-age girls to send naked pictures has sentence deferred

A leisure pool lifeguard who downloaded indecent images of children after he had been caught asking two under-age girls to send naked pictures of themselves to him had sentence deferred for a year for good behaviour yesterday.

In February, Sheriff Margaret Neilson had called for a background report on 23-year-old Benjamin Mackay who pleaded guilty to having indecent images and videos on his computer on October 24, 2014.

She also asked for a progress report on a community payback order imposed in May last year for the earlier offence.

Mackay, of 5 Woodlands Close, Westhill, Inverness had been sentenced to 300 hours of unpaid work and a three year supervision order after admitting two offences of sending sexual messages to the girls and asking them for naked pictures of themselves in July, 2013.

But yesterday, defence lawyer Rory Gowans told Inverness Sheriff Court that “the robust order” was going well and the report on Mackay was “very positive.”

“My client is taking this very seriously and I would ask the court to defer sentence to allow this good work to continue.”

Mackay had already been placed on the Sex Offender’s Register.