July 2023

Repeat sex offender found with 174 explicit images of children

A repeat sex offender has been told he’s “on thin ice” after he was found to have downloaded dozens of sexual photos featuring children. 

Mold Crown Court heard that Callum MacDougall, of Abbots Walk in Holywell, admitted to creating the images which placed him in breach of a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO).

Richard Edwards, prosecuting, told the court that the 33-year-old had been slapped with the order after previously being convicted for downloading the explicit images previously in 2016.

He was prosecuted for inciting a child to engage in a sexual act three years later in 2019.

Under the terms of a SHPO, sex offenders are closely monitored and have restricted access to the internet. However, last January, police found MacDougall had gone back to old habits.

Officers discovered that the defendant had made performed web searches using words such as ‘young’ and ‘teen’. A deeper dive into MacDougall’s search history yielded a range of sexual images involving girls as young as a year old, the court heard.

In all, MacDougall had viewed 174 explicit pictures between his tablet and laptop. Further analysis found that the defendant had tried to hide his identity from the cops online using software that allowed him to sign up to social media sites and access cloud storage systems.

Recorder Greg Bull told him that “with great reluctance” he’d avoid going to prison but was “on thin ice”. He said, pointing to the steps into the court cells, that: “I want to make it plain to you that if you breach this suspended sentence you’ll be going down those steps behind you.”

As punishment, his two year jail term was suspended for two years. In that time, the judge ordered MacDougall to complete a rehabilitation programme and do 200 hours unpaid work. His SHPO was extended for another 10 years too.

October 2019

Mum tells paedophile of sickening impact of what he did to her girl

The mother of the victim of a child sex offender today told him the sickening impact his actions had had on her daughter.

Callum Iain McDougall had encouraged two underage girls to perform sex acts on a live webcam.

He sent them vile messages and urged them to expose themselves to him.

The social media company behind the webcam app alerted the American authorities, who told the National Crime Agency.

The NCA tipped off police in the midlands.

When the girls were spoken to by police, they said they had not been coerced into what they had done and were just messing about.

But the force told North Wales Police and they arrested 29-year-old McDougall.

At Mold crown court today, one victim’s mother read a statement, saying what McDougall had done had sickened and confused her.

She said her daughter had “lost her spark and her smile”, and had fallen behind in school.

The girl wanted to know what had happened to the “people who asked her to do things”, and had begun to self-harm.

The mother said: “It is not clever or a laughing matter.

“It’s sick to ask kids to do indecent things to get a kick out of it.”

She said that it had left her daughter feeling “dirty and worthless”.

McDougall was arrested in February. He claimed he was sickened by what he had done, and was isolated and had no contact with his own child.

He had been bullied at school and had low self-esteem.

McDougall claimed not to recall the broadcast and when shown the footage said he thought the girls were 13 or 14.

Judge Huw Rees said that his claim that he did not have any recollection of viewing the broadcast meant that it was impossible for the probation service to fully explore his motivation.

He had distorted thoughts and perceptions about children as sexual things.

His deviant thought processes were far more entrenched that he cared to acknowledge.

Until he addressed matters in a more open way then the risk he posed could not be reduced.

At a previous hearing he was placed on a long community order to try and address his problems via an internet sex offender programme.

The court heard his heard his former partner was shocked to find indecent images of children on his mobile phone.

When she challenged him, he begged her not to tell the police.

But the police were informed and they found indecent images and movies on his phone and laptop.

There were also chat logs which he admitted were fantasy conversations with others and they had also shared indecent images of children.

But the true extent of the offending was not known because he had not provided the correct user name and passwords for his Dropbox and Kik Messenger cloud based apps.

McDougall was jailed for 18 months and ordered to sign the sex offenders register for 10 years