Ewen Murray 61

Description

A perverted grandad sent sex messages to a teen then blamed his victim afterwards for being a slut.

Twisted Ewen Murray, from Linwood, sent a series of explicit texts to the 14-year-old girl, including one while his wife was in the bathroom.

After being caught out, he offered various explanations for his vile behaviour, including mental illness and labelling the youngster a slut.

Murray, 59, finally faced justice at Paisley Sheriff Court, where he was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for three years.

He was also banned from being in the company of children he isnt related to without adult supervision.

The case had dragged on since 2019, with Murray claiming he suffered mental illness as a result of a blow to his head some years ago causing multiple adjournments in the case.

His lawyer Anthony Boland stated Murrays illness was responsible for him not having control of what he was doing.

But Sheriff Eoin McGinty slammed the pervert for his inability to accept responsibility throughout the case.

He said: You have tried to manipulate proceedings from the offset.

I dont believe your so-called brain injury played any part in this.

You say in the report that you were highly intoxicated, then you went on to say that you sent one message when your wife went to the bathroom.

One of the messages was at 11.30am.

I simply dont believe you were so drunk at that time of the day.

You claim you were so drunk, but you were compos mentis enough to pick your moment.

Murray, of Clippens Road, admitted that between June 21, 2018 and June 25, 2018, he repeatedly sent a girl he knew to be 14-years-old, messages of a sexual and indecent nature.

Court papers show Murray sent the messages for the purposes of obtaining sexual gratification or of humiliating, distressing or alarming the youngster.

Mr Boland told the court Murray now accepts responsibility for the messages.

However, he told how the social worker who wrote the criminal justice social work report considered Murray to deny any sexual nature to the messages.

Sheriff McGinty was worried Murray was supported by his wife in court. He stated: The fact that the report states you deny any sexual nature to these messages, and that your wife is here in court today supporting you, concerns me.

Mr Boland asked the court to deal with Murray without imposing a custodial sentence, adding: We have a man here for offences in 2018.

He has committed no further offences and he is a man who has been on bail for three years and never breached the order.

Sentencing, Sheriff McGinty imposed a direct alternative to custody, warning Murray that if the order is breached, he would be facing jail time.

He said: Ive read the deeply disturbing report, given your comments you have made.

I find your various explanations very disturbing in that you blame the 14-year-old girl, calling her a slut.

This offence does constitute a significant breach of trust and power given that this was a 14-year-old girl who confided in you.

Vile Murray was placed under supervision of the social work department for three years and ordered to carry out the Moving Forward Making Changes programme for sex offenders.

In addition, he was ordered to carry out 270 hours of unpaid work and given a number of conduct requirements that prevent him from deleting internet browsing history and from having any unsupervised contact with any child under the age of 18, that isnt related to him, without another adult being present.

A review hearing was set for July 29.