Nairn sex pest told watching porn gave him ‘warped view’ after exposing himself to girl and sending nude photos to teens
A sex pest was told by a sheriff watching pornography was giving him "a warped view" of relationships between men and women.
Codey Masson targeted five teenage women and an underage girl over a four-year period and demanded nude photos and sent explicit images to them uninvited.
The 28-year-old, of Ord View Brae, Nairn, was appearing for sentence at Inverness Sheriff Court after previously admitting a previous conviction for a similar type sex offence committed during the same time frame of August 2015 to August 2019.
He had pleaded guilty to six charges in total, one of engaging in sexual activity with a girl under the age of 16 and five others of communicating indecently with the women and sending photos of male private parts to them and occasionally exposing himself to some of his victims.
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After hearing from defence counsel Bill Adam that his client had not offended since and "had learned a lesson he had to learn", Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald decided against a prison sentence and imposed a community payback order with several requirements.
She told Masson he must do 225 hours of unpaid community work and remain under social work supervision and on the Sex Offenders’ Register for three years. She also imposed severe restrictions on his use of the internet, including the need to get prior permission from his supervising officers before he obtained internet-enabled devices; a ban on encryption and secrecy software; plus a ban on using social media.
The sheriff told Mr Adam: "I will not require him to do the Moving Forward to Change programme [to rehabilitate sex offenders] because he has done a programme before and it seems to have done him some good."
After reading the background report on the accused, Sheriff Macdonald told Masson: "It is clear to me that you were watching a lot of pornography which gave you a warped view of relationships between a man and a woman. It doesn't work like that."
At a previous hearing, fiscal depute Pauline Gair told the court that most of the incidents started innocently on social media but then got increasingly sexualised.
She said that the first offence involved a girl who was around 13 or 14 years old and they met initially at his home.
"They began exchanging messages but on one occasion he met her at the Co-op on Moss-side Road, Nairn, telling her that he liked her more than just a friend,” Mrs Gair said. “She made it clear to him she was not interested in him.
"The accused looked around to make sure that no-one else was present and removed his p**** from his trousers and asked her if she would like to touch it or suck it. She told him to put it away and walked away from him."
She added that a few days later he encountered her in local woods where he apologised and cuddled her before again showing his private parts and performing a sex act on himself before asking the girl to do it for him. The girl ran away from him.
Mrs Gair then told of a third occasion when the girl was mourning a friend, who died at a house in Nairn, and Masson cuddled her, before touching her intimately and again showing his private parts.
"She told him to f*** off and got up and left the house immediately," Mrs Gair said.
The prosecutor then narrated the experiences of Masson's other five victims where he would repeatedly ask for nude photographs of them, send them photos of male private body parts, of himself lying naked and asking for sex from one of them.
On each occasion, Mrs Gair said, the girls rejected his advances and did not request the images or consent to them being sent.
Mr Adam briefly told Sheriff Macdonald: "He was a very immature young man but has developed since then. The immaturity led to him believing his very naive and misplaced advances would be reciprocated. He has expressed genuine remorse."
