53-year-old Scott Howie, director of Spina Bifida Hydrocephalus (SBH) Scotland used WhatsApp to message "Emily" sexually explicit pictures as well as pictures of his face and torso on April 11, 2023, Daily Mail reports.
Unbeknownst to Howie, Emily was not a 13-year-old girl, but a profile set up by a member of a Welsh online child protection group. They then alerted the authorities and passed Howie's information to a Scottish vigilante team.
A day after Howie was confronted, he resigned from his role at SBH. He then appeared at Airdrie Sheriff Court and pleaded guilty to communicating indecently with a person he thought to be a child.
Howie is married and confined to a wheelchair, having spina bifida himself.
When his horrified wife asked him why he wanted to engage with Emily under the pretense she was 13 years old, Howie allegedly replied, "I don't know why. Boredom."
Prosecutor Lauren Cole told the court: "The decoy identified herself as being a 13-year-old girl. Howie acknowledged her age and said, 'You're very young. I should not be talking to such a young girl. I got excited that you wanted to chat."
"He asked her to switch the conversation to WhatsApp and provided his phone number. The conversation continued in a sexual manner until 11:15 pm that evening. He admitted a male in an online profile photo was him," she said.
"He stated that he knew the person he communicated with was 13 and he should have stopped. The police were then contacted."
