April 2021

Edinburgh student caught with film collection including children being murdered

A pervert who calls himself a ‘animal rights activist’ was caught with a horror collection of movies depicting children being murdered has escaped a jail sentence.

Neil Hansen, 54, downloaded a “depraved” collection of films of young children being abused after meeting fellow sickos in an online chat room.

Hansen was caught with films with titles including “15-year-old girl raped then murdered” and “Abducted, raped and left for dead”.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told police raided Hansen’s flat at the Moredun area of the capital after receiving intelligence “extreme material online” was being copied at the address.

Prosecutor Lynsay Magro said during the search officers seized three laptops, seven mobile phones and three USB devices from the home in October 2019.

The devices were examined and “a number of indecent images of children” were recovered.

Ms Magro said: “Websites found to be searched by the accused include search terms for ‘raped Indian’ and ‘raped schoolgirl’ and ‘underage’.

The total amount of images and movies discovered included 75 Category A – the most depraved end of the spectrum – 40 Category B and 127 Category C.

The court was also told Hansen is currently a university student and his previous offending in England is “highly related to animal rights campaigning that he was following at that time”.

Hansen had previously pleaded guilty to possessing the images at the capital court last month and he returned for sentencing last Thursday.

Sheriff Kenneth Campbell QC said: “It is clear from what I have read [in the reports] that your interests can only be described as depraved.

“It is clear you became desensitised by the images which you were viewing.

“In dealing with your case I am primarily concerned with protecting the public and I have considered whether custody is the best way to do that.

“I think that in your case intensive work in the community is a disposal which is going to protect the public best in the future.”

Hansen was placed on an offenders supervision order for three years and told he must complete an assessment to take part in the specialist sex offender programme CISSO.

Hansen was also placed on the Sex Offenders Register for three years.

Hansen pleaded guilty to a charge of taking, permitting to be taken or making indecent photographs of children at his home address between December 29, 2018 and October 17, 2019

April 2021

Edinburgh man caught with a stash of horrific child abuse images on his computer

May 2021: William Lothian was found dead within HMP Edinburgh just four days after being jailed

May 2021

Pervert Scots football coach who assaulted young boys while they slept jailed for 45 months

A perverted football coach who gave boys alcohol and showed porn movies before sexually abusing them has been jailed for 45 months.

William Lothian indecently assaulted several young players – aged between 11 and 14 – while coach of a boys’ football club in Edinburgh.

Vile Lothian, 66, invited youngsters to stay over at his city home and preyed on them while they all slept in his bedroom.

One youngster was left so terrified after Lothian jumped into his bed and pressed his penis against him he fled in the middle of the night.

Seven victims, now in their 30s, gave evidence against Lothian during a five day trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in March. Lothian denied all 14 allegations against him but was found guilty by a jury of all charges.

The predator – known to the kids as Bill during his coaching days – was sentenced at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Tuesday.

It emerged during sentencing that Lothian tried to commit suicide after giving evidence at his trial.

Sentencing him, Sheriff Chris Dickson said the seven victims had “loved football and built up a great team spirit”.

Sheriff Dickson said Lothian was “very clearly in a position of trust”, adding: “You exploited and grossly breached that trust.”

He said Lothian had “robbed them of their happy memories” and caused them “serious psychological harm”.

The sheriff added it was a “difficult if not impossible and lifelong” struggle for the survivors to cope with the abuse they suffered.

Sheriff Dickson said Lothian continued to deny his guilt despite “compelling evidence” from the victims.

The abuse took place between the late 90s and early 2000s.

The court heard that relatives of Lothian intended to visit him in prison.

The trial heard how Lothian regularly assaulted the children during weekly training sessions by grabbing their testicles and placing his finger near their anus.

The men told the jury there was regular “inappropriate touching” during training.

One man said the retired janitor would often “touch our private parts” and “sometimes put his finger up our bums in a joking manner”

He added the abuse became “a norm at training” and Lothian “made it out to be fun, like a game”.

Lothian invited two players to stay over at his home when they were between 10 and 12 and all three would drink beer and Bacardi in a converted attic.

One victim said: “We would then go down to his bedroom and lie on the floor. He would stick pornography on the TV and watch it.

“After watching the pornography he had his hands down my shorts. I was half asleep when he was doing this.”

The witness said Lothian touched his privates, and added: “We went to sleep and when we woke up it was as if nothing had happened.”

The man said he blocked the abuse out at the time, but “as the years have gone on it has had a big impact on me”.

He added looking back it made him feel “horrible and disgusted” and he now feels “ashamed”.

Another victim said he was abused during a stay at Lothian’s home when he was around 13. He said Lothian, of the capital’s Muirhouse, gave him beer to drink before climbing into bed and molesting him.

The man said: “I could feel his penis on my leg. His hand then travelled down towards my boxers.

“I shrugged him off and said ‘What are you doing?’ He said to me ‘It’s OK, don’t worry.

“I jumped out of bed and I just lay on the floor with a pillow. It was freezing cold and I fell asleep.”

He woke hours later and “sneaked out of the house” while it was still dark.

April 2021

Pervert Edinburgh football coach played porn movies to boozed-up boys before abusing them

A pervert football coach gave young boys alcohol and showed them pornographic movies before sexually abusing them at his Edinburgh home.

The predator, known to the boys at the time as Bill, invited several lads to stay over at his home where he gave them alcohol and preyed on them while they all slept in his bedroom.

March 2021

Edinburgh pensioner who climbed into bed with three schoolgirls is jailed

A pensioner who sexually abused three schoolgirls over a 15-year period has been jailed for more than two years.

Frank Boyd, 73, repeatedly molested the youngsters by touching their breasts and genitals when the girls visited his home in Edinburgh.

Boyd also climbed into bed with the girls and rubbed his body against them after being left alone with them on occasions between 2004 and last year.

The elderly predator even groped one girl while his wife slept in the next room and was eventually caught when a victim told a teacher what had been happening to her during the visits to his home.

During the police investigation two more victims then came forward to reveal they had also been sexually assaulted by the OAP while attending his home.

Boyd – who served in the British Army for 25 years – pleaded guilty to six sexual offences against the three girls when he appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month.

He returned to the dock for sentencing on Friday where Sheriff Kenneth McGowan jailed Boyd for 27 months and placed on the sex offenders register for ten years.

Prosecutor Aidan Higgins read a written narration to the court stating Boyd targeted the first victim in 2004 when she was just 11-years-old.

The girl’s police statement described how Boyd sexually assaulted her on various occasions over a three year period while his wife was “either in the kitchen or having a nap”.

She said he would encourage her to lie on top of him and abused her by putting his hands under her clothing and touching her genitals.

The girl added she “didn’t ever tell anyone” about the attacks as she was “stressed about upsetting anyone”.

The second victim also visited the pervert’s home and said the abuse began around 2008 when she was 11-years-old.

She described to police one occasion when Boyd, of Broomhouse, Edinburgh, climbed into bed with her and she was forced to push him off her after he had touched her genitals.

The girl also said Boyd “had a fixation on my boobs as from 11 to 12 I began to develop” and that he would regularly “brush my boobs with his elbow” in the passing.

She added: “I began asking people to chum me to the kitchen so I wouldn’t have to be alone with him.

“I never told anyone about this at the time because of how well respected he was. He previously had a career in the army and he was a very social man.

“I was sure I wouldn’t have been believed as it was my word against [his]. This behaviour went on for years.”

The third victim was just seven when Boyd began sexually abusing her in a campaign that lasted three years.

The court heard Boyd “routinely sought out opportunities to be alone” with the youngster in his kitchen or his bedroom.

The fiscal said Boyd would “pull her towards him, place his hands over and under her clothing, and handle and grope her body, breasts and vagina”.

He added: “On some occasions the accused would get into bed with the complainer and rub his body against her back.

“The accused’s conduct continued until the middle of January 2020 when the complainer felt the need to tell someone what was happening and spoke to a teacher at school.

“It was following this disclosure by the complainer that it came to light that the accused had similarly offended against the other complainers in earlier years.”

March 2021

Pensioner who forced kids to eat dog food during seven year abuse campaign jailed

An OAP has been jailed for a horrifying campaign of abuse which saw children beaten and burned, and forced to eat dog food.

Frances Forsyth abused six children over a seven year period – in one case burning a young girl by holding her hand against an electric fire.

Forsyth, 80, also neglected the youngsters, leaving them dirty and starving and forcing them to scavenge dog food from a dog bowl when she left the room

The OAP admitted carrying out offences of neglect and assault when the children stayed at her home on occasions between 1973 and 1980.

Her sentencing has been deferred several times after she admitted the crimes at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in March last year.

Forsyth had to be brought to the capital court yesterday in an ambulance.

Sheriff Michael O’Grady QC told the frail great-grandmother she had carried out “very grave” and “deeply disturbing” assaults on the children and jailed her for 16 months.

He said: “[The offences] show a lengthy catalogue of disturbing ill-treatment, neglect, indifference and assault against very young and very vulnerable children. Under any view they amount to a gross breach of trust.”

Previously the court heard the details of the abuse suffered by the children at the hands of Forsyth and her then-husband Brian McKernan.

Prosecutor Nicole Lavelle said Forsyth was in her 30s at the time and she and McKernan moved into a one-bedroomed flat in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh in 1975.

The pair occasionally looked after six children at the house and dished out “routine beatings” to the youngsters.

The court heard Forsyth would encourage her husband to beat the children while she also carried out sadistic assaults on them after they failed to carry out household chores.

The children were neglected by Forsyth during their stays at her home and were described as being “starving, poorly clothed and not provided for”.

The children were said to have been regularly left “dirty, unwashed and smelling badly” and were only “afforded scraps of leftovers” at meal times.

Ms Lavelle said “the children would often eat mouldy food off the floor” and resorted to stealing dog biscuits from a cupboard they were so hungry.

The fiscal added Forsyth gave fresh food to her four dogs and the starving children would on occasions be forced to raid the animal’s bowls when she left the room.

Forsyth also admitted to punching and kicking a number of the children to the head and body and on one occasion she held a child’s hand “against an electric fire”.

The court also heard Forsyth’s husband Brian McKernan appeared at the High Court in Livingston in 2019 where judge Lord Tyre found sexual offences against him involving the same children to be proved.

McKernan was deemed to be unfit for trial due to suffering from cancer and though he was placed on the sex offenders register in November 2019 he died three weeks later.

The brief added Forsyth would be “extremely vulnerable” if she was sentenced to custody and she had not committed any further offending in the past 40 years.

Forsyth pleaded guilty to four charges of wilfully ill-treating, abandoning and neglecting and assaulting six children at an address in Edinburgh between September 21, 1973 and December 31, 1980.