A OAP travelled from his home in Scotland to sexually abuse a vulnerable boy in St Helens after posing as a 13-year-old online.
Segart Garth Lochead, a former Scots Guard, was jailed for seven years, four months, after assaulting the boy.
Lochead was told by a judge that he had “exploited a young and vulnerable individual”.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that he began chatting to the 13-year-old boy, who lived in St Helens, via a website and they had Skype conversations during which Lochead pretended to be 13.
Judge Elizabeth Nicholls said: “He was no doubt on the cusp of discovering his own sexuality and you abused and exploited that for your own sexual gratification.”
Lochead, 69, of Cresswell Gardens, Dumfries, pleaded guilty to sexual grooming, inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and two of sexual activity with a child.
He was ordered to sign the Sex Offender Register for life and a Sexual Harm Prevention Order was imposed.
The Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts, Liverpool Crown Court. File picture. Photo by Ian Cooper
He has no convictions for sexual offences but has previous offences for downloading and distributing indecent images.
Martine Snowden, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court, that the offences happened in 2011 and 2012 when the boy, who has learning difficulties, was aged 13 and 14.
The offences came to light while police were investigating him for the indecent image offences in October 2014.
Lochead came down to meet the boy at locations including Sherdley Park in St Helens in his yellow car with blacked out windows and on one occasion he gave the boy, and his friend, £10 each.
During conversations Lochead spoke of a video showing him having sex with a nine-year-old boy.
Steven Swift, defending, said that Lochead, who has been married more than once, had been leading a solitary life and his two sons have no contact with him.
He was in the Scots Guards for 30 years and had been hard-working but at the time of the offences was “depressed and in a dark place”.
Source: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/