An accountant has been jailed for conspiring to rape and sexually assault what turned out to be a fictitious schoolgirl and writing “kiss me” on a child’s bottom.

Jonathan Porter, 49, was snared following online discussions with an “undercover operative”.

Porter believed he was talking to the nanny of an 11-year-old girl.

Over a period of days in October 2019, he described his interest in meeting a girl with whom he could perform sexual acts.

Porter, who was living in Perth at the time, then agreed with the “nanny” that they would bring the “girl” to a hotel in Newcastle where he could carry out said acts.

At the High Court in Edinburgh, Lady Wise said: “In the messages, which you accept you sent, you described in quite graphic detail the acts of rape and sexual assault you intended to perpetrate.

“The agreement was reached that you probably would carry out these acts on the child before Christmas 2019.

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“No meeting took place because [the undercover operative] reported the matter to police in Scotland who questioned you.

“Your position to the police was that you had engaged in these online chats for something to do, someone to speak to and that you had no intention of acting upon it.

“You claimed not to have any sexual interest in children, something that the jury clearly rejected.”

During the police investigation, officers discovered that Porter had taken a number of indecent images of a child under the age of 10.

In one of the images, which he sent to another person, Porter had written “kiss me” in green ink on the child’s bottom.

Lady Wise said the action constituted sexual touching and said the images were “illustrative of a disturbingly unhealthy and indecent interest in a child”.

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Porter was convicted back in April of conspiring to rape and sexually assault a child under the age of 13, as well as taking, possessing, and distributing indecent images and the sexual touching of a child.

He has now been sentenced to four years and nine months in prison, and placed on the sex offenders register for life.

Lady Wise said: “The offence of conspiracy to rape and sexually assault a child under the age of 13 is of the most appalling nature and it is my duty to impose a sentence that reflects the appropriate level of condemnation of your actions, both so that you receive a suitable punishment and to act as a deterrent.

“The risk of you reoffending has been assessed as a medium one.

“Of course, in relation to this charge there was no physical victim – no child was harmed as a result of the conspiracy because, albeit unknown to you, the child you agreed to rape was fictional.

“I have taken this unusual feature into account in determining sentence, such that the sentence I am imposing is considerably less than I would have imposed had there been actual harm.”

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