A child sex offender who sneaked abroad for a sunshine holiday with a family has been jailed for a year.
Paul Scally was able to spend a week on a foreign holiday despite being recognised pre-flight in the airport by an off-duty police officer. The eagle-eyed specialist officer from the sex offenders unit recognised depraved Scally waiting to board a flight to holiday island Fuertaventura.
The officer reported the sighting of Scally with a mixed-age family group at Edinburgh Airport shortly before the flight departure on 8 September last year. He contacted the sex offender tracking unit but because it was early in the morning the office was unmanned and no-one was able to prevent Scally boarding his flight.
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Scally, who was under strict monitoring rules preventing him travelling abroad without informing the authorities in advance, was able to spend an illicit week at the Spanish beach resort. Dundee Sheriff Court was told that social workers considered Scally to be of such high risk to youngsters that he should be remitted to the High Court for sentencing.
However, Sheriff George Way declined to follow the advice - which could have seen Scally placed on a lifelong restriction order - and instead jailed him for 12 months. He said: "The whole purpose of these provisions is the protection of the public. He left the country and could have been doing anything.
"He knew perfectly well what he was doing. He took the risk and he has to pay the price. He cannot avoid a custodial sentence." The 42-year-old convicted sex offender was arrested when he got off the plane back in Scotland at the end of his holiday.
Fiscal depute Lynne Mannion told the court: "He was convicted on indictment in 2015 and was sentenced to prison and placed on the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely. His notification requirements are that he must inform the police of any foreign travel. At 4.45 am a police officer from the sex offenders unit was off-duty and waiting to board a flight at Edinburgh Airport.
"He saw the accused and family members within the airport and travelling as a group. Due to it being the early hours his message was not picked up until several hours later.
"A check of the system revealed that the accused had not registered this foreign travel. Accordingly, he had breached his sex offender notification requirements.
"Police were alerted that he would be on a return flight on 15 September. He was apprehended when he left the flight."
Scally, Back Manse, Newburgh, Fife, admitted knowingly leaving the UK and going to Fuertaventura without giving police any notice of his travel plans.
In 2015, he was jailed for two years and placed on the register for life after carrying out sex attacks against two girls aged five and nine. Scally took photographs of the youngsters at addresses in Lochgelly and Cardenden and had images stored on his computer.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard Scally described as "a manipulative person who abused the trust of a family who treated him as one of their own." Scally had denied the charges, which took place between March 2009 and October 2012, but he was found guilty by a jury.
The court was told that his victims had suffered trauma as a result of what Scally had done to them and had continued to suffer nightmares.
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