October 2013 Paedophile jailed after victims’ mothers intercept sex texts A paedophile from Glasgow has been jailed for more than six years after the mothers of two teenage girls trapped him by sending text messages posing as their own daughters. Donald Kennedy targeted two 13-year-old schoolgirls despite the fact that a court had banned him from contacting under-16s. One of the girls’ mothers discovered her daughter had had sex with Kennedy several times after noticing she had run up a monthly mobile phone bill for twice the usual amount. She confiscated her daughter’s phone and noticed a number of missed calls from the 29-year-old father of two. The woman then sent Kennedy a message pretending to be her daughter, saying she had obtained a new phone and needed to know who was calling. In the subsequent exchange Kennedy made a reference to sex and the mother spoke to her daughter, who admitted she had been in contact with the convicted sex offender. After the woman went to police, Kennedy was detained and put under an order from Glasgow Sheriff Court banning him from possessing or using a device capable of electronic communication or accessing the internet without telling police. He handed over one mobile phone to police but was discovered to still have a BlackBerry. He subsequently appeared at the sheriff court in November last year but was allowed bail. But Kennedy later attempted to contact another girl who placed an online advert looking for a horse for loan in exchange for a small fee. The girl, who was describing as having “a great enthusiasm for horses”, gave her age and her mother’s email address on the site. On February 9 she found a message from Kennedy on her mother’s email account which said: “You like hores tex my number” and gave his contact details. The girl became suspicious and told her mother, who then contacted Kennedy by text and email. Kennedy claimed he was 16, gave a false name and suggested she pay £20 for his horse or do “something else”. When the girl’s mother replied: “What do you mean something else?”, Kennedy responded: “We can meet up, just me and you and do something together.” At the High Court in Edinburgh on Wednesday, Kennedy admitted charges of underage sex, breaching a court order and contacting a 13-year-old while prohibited from communication with children under the age of 16. Lord Burns told him: “It is worrying you have shown such a persistent attitude towards your attraction to young girls of 12 and 13.” “You have pursued that attraction in the face of court orders that told you to desist from that. It is clear from your record that you have a persistent attitude of disobeying court orders.” The judge jailed Kennedy for a total of six years and four months, ordered that he be kept under supervision for a further four years and placed him on the sex offenders register.