SENTENCING STATEMENTS
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HMA v AB
Dec 4, 2025
Lord Harrower made the following statement in court:
“AB, you have been found guilty of communicating indecently with a child under the age of 13 on various occasions over a period of over four years, contrary to sections 23 and 24 of the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009. You have also been convicted of wilfully illtreating the same child in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health, contrary to section 12(1) of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937.
When the child was 8 years old, and you were 31, you formed a relationship with her mother. You soon moved into the family home and shared the parental duties. At first you would do things together as a family, but increasingly you spent time alone with the child. She came to regard you as a friend more than a stepfather. Her relationship with her mother and her school-friends deteriorated. In convicting you of wilful illtreatment, the jury were satisfied that you isolated the child from her family and friends. I will not speculate on which of the many adminicles of evidence might have persuaded the jury to reach that conclusion. However, I do draw particular attention to this aspect of the charge of wilful illtreatment, since it forms an important part of the background to what might be regarded as the principal charge of which you were convicted, that of indecent communication.
According to evidence which the jury must be taken to have accepted, you would send the child shocking pornographic images via WhatsApp or text. You would also watch explicit pornographic videos together on your phone and on a laptop. You would send her search terms that may have appeared innocuous enough, certainly to a young child, but when used by her would bring up sexual images. The videos and images would become more and more extreme, involving explicit pornographic content. They also included images of violence, an additional component of the charge of wilful illtreatment that the jury found proved. At first, the child found the images disturbing, but over time, she came to regard them as quite normal.
The jury were not shown these images, the evidence having been that you took some care at the end of each day to delete them in order to avoid detection. Nevertheless, the content of some of them was described in detail in the child’s evidence, and I am satisfied that the level of harm that would have been caused to such a young child as a result of having been shown such images would have been high. This is confirmed by her recent personal statement, in which she bears witness, as an adult, to the lasting psychological harm that such prolonged exposure to sexual and violent imagery has had upon her.
I am also satisfied that you have displayed a high level of culpability. Having targeted and then groomed a vulnerable young child, while in a position of trust over her, you repeatedly committed these offences over a prolonged period, in the child’s own home, while systematically covering your tracks. I have taken account of everything said on your behalf by Ms Prais, and in particular, the absence in your record of any analogous offending and the social worker’s assessment of risk. But having regard to both culpability and harm, I am satisfied that there is no appropriate alternative to custody.
By way of cross check, I have taken account of the guideline issued by the Sentencing Council for England and Wales in respect of the analogous offence of sexual communication with a child, contrary to s15A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Broadly speaking, your case falls into the category A1, for which a sentencing range of 1 – 2 years is recommended. Any mitigation arising, in particular, from the fact that you are, to all intents and purposes, a first offender, is balanced out by the various aggravating factors that I have already mentioned.
I therefore sentence you, AB, in respect of charge 2, the charge of indecent communication, to a period of imprisonment of 18 months, backdated to 18 November 2025 to take account of the discrete period of 8 days you have already spent in custody. In respect of charge 3, the charge of child cruelty, I sentence you to a period of imprisonment of 9 months, similarly backdated, and to be served concurrently with the sentence previously imposed. In addition, you will be subject to the notification provisions of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 for a period of 10 years beginning from the date of your conviction on 6 November 2025.
Finally, I will make a non-harassment order such that you may not contact, approach or communicate with the complainer, or attempt to contact, approach or communicate with her, either directly or indirectly, for an indefinite period.”
04.12.25