Net beast bedded girl aged just 14
A MOTHER denounced Scotland’s soft justice system yesterday as the serial offender who groomed her schoolgirl daughter for sex was jailed for little more than three years.
Vile Greg Dawson, 34, posed as a boy of 16 on social networking site Bebo before persuading his 14-year-old victim to meet him.
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When the girl realised he was much older than he had claimed, Dawson told her he loved her and wanted to get her pregnant.
They had unprotected intercourse three times at her Glasgow home.
On the last occasion, the girl’s mother came home unexpectedly and saw Dawson coming out of her daughter’s bedroom.
Yesterday at the High Court in Edinburgh, Dawson, who admitted grooming the girl and having unlawful sex between June and October last year, was jailed for 38 months. In jailing the repeat offender, who was caged for 10 months for a sex offence in 2007, judge Lady Smith warned of the “dark and dangerous side” of the internet.
But speaking outside the court his victim’s mother said: “The Scottish justice system stinks.”
The woman, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said she did not believe that the sentence would act as a deterrent.
She asked: “Who is making the deals here? Who is looking after the Scottish people? Nobody.”
Lady Smith said Dawson would have faced a four-year jail term had he not pleaded guilty. The judge also told Dawson the internet was probably the biggest development in communication technology since the invention of the printing press.
“But there is a dark and dangerous side to it and that side of it can cause dreadful damage. It can be used to exploit the vulnerable. It can be used to exploit children and that is what you did,” she told Dawson.
But the sentence appalled children’s charity Kidscape.
Director Claude Knights said: “It appears that Dawson is a determined predator with powerful grooming skills who caused his victim much trauma.
“We need to question whether his latest sentence reflects the gravity of his crime, and whether the term is long enough to ensure that he can follow a coherent treatment programme.”
