A DUNBAR man who texted a schoolgirl and asked her to send him pictures of her body has been jailed.

Keith Mowat, of Lammermuir Crescent, told the youngster he had obtained her number from a friend and he soon began complimenting the child on her looks.

Mowat then asked the 14-year-old to send him “images” of herself, which she took to mean pictures of her private parts.

The girl told her mother of the contact and the police were called in to investigate in June 2016.

The 34-year-old was also contacting a second schoolgirl around the same time after he made contact with a 13-year-old girl from Oxfordshire.

He sent the girl private messages on the social media site Facebook and the pair exchanged friendly messages over a period of time.

But the contact came to a halt when a relative of the girl discovered the Facebook chats and confronted Mowat by sending him an online message telling him to stop the contact.

As a result of this, Mowat fell out with the young girl he had been messaging and told her he would post their conversations to a public page in a bid to embarrass the girl.

The incident was reported to the police but Mowat resumed the contact with the youngster weeks later when he sent a Happy New Year message to her.

The girl subsequently told her father of the messages and police in Scotland were notified.

Officers attended Mowat’s home on July 12, 2016, where he told them he believed both girls to be 17 and denied anything to do with a sexual nature.

Mowat had admitted his guilt to the two offences at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in December and sentence had been deferred for reports.

Mowat was jailed for 12 months by Sheriff Donald Corke when he appeared back at the city court for sentencing last Tuesday.

The sheriff also placed him on the sex offenders' register for 10 years.

Mowat admitted to contacting a 13-year-old girl and uttering threats to her that he would post conversations online and threatening her with violence on various occasions at his home address between May 1, 2016, and January 1, 2017.

He also pleaded guilty to repeatedly making remarks of a sexual nature to a 14-year-old girl and repeatedly asking her to send him photographs of her body on various occasions from his home address between June 19 and 23, 2016.