A COMPUTER specialist who was caught sending images of his genitals to an internet account he thought belonged to a schoolgirl has escaped a custodial sentence.

Damian Lynch, 50, sent naked pictures and videos of himself to the online profile of a ‘12-year-old girl Chloe’ on the social media site Kick.

Lynch, of Musselburgh, also posted “highly sexual” messages to the account of a ‘13-year-old girl Emily’ during internet chats two years ago.

But the IT architect was caught after the two youngsters’ profiles turned out to be female police officers who were working undercover in a bid to catch online child sex predators.

And when Lynch was arrested at his then family home in Dalkeith in October 2018, police also discovered he had been downloading images of child abuse.

The 168 images and four movies included a film showing a five-year-old girl being sexually abused by an adult male.

Lynch, a father of two, admitted three offences when he appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court earlier this year and returned for sentencing on Friday.

Sheriff Thomas Welsh QC placed Lynch on a strict three-year community order where the former soldier is banned from any contact with children under the age of 18.

Lynch – who owns IT firm DAL Consultancy Ltd – was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for three years and ordered to stay away from public parks, swimming pools and school grounds when children were present.

Sheriff Welsh warned Lynch that any breach of the order would see him jailed and a review of his conduct was set down for December.

Previously, the court heard that the business owner had contacted the two undercover officers, who were posing as children on the free online messenger service Kick.

Prosecutor Nicole Lavelle said that Lynch had engaged in “highly sexual” conversations with both girls and asked ‘Emily’ if she “liked older guys” and if she had ever “played with a guy’s ****”.

The fiscal said that during Lynch’s online chats with ‘Chloe’, he had sent her naked pictures and videos of himself which showed off “a distinctive tribal tattoo on his bicep”.

Ms Lavelle added that the pictures included one showing Lynch in a state of arousal, while he had also attempted to arrange a meeting with the child.

The court was told that during Lynch’s police interview he told officers he believed ‘Chloe’ was an adult in her 20s and the pair had been engaging in “role play and fantasy”.

He denied being sexually attracted to children and he described the images he had downloaded to an electronic tablet and a mobile phone as “repulsive”.

On Friday, solicitor Jim Stephenson said his client now “accepted his culpability for these crimes”, despite Lynch downplaying their seriousness during social work meetings.

Lynch pleaded guilty to contacting a person he believed to be a 13-year-old girl called Emily, who in fact was an undercover police officer, and sending communications of an indecent nature on July 16, 2018, at an address in Dalkeith.

He also admitted contacting a person he believed to be a girl called Chloe, who in fact was an undercover police officer, and causing her to look at a sexual image by sending still and moving images of a sexual nature and repeatedly sending her communications of a sexual nature between September 27 and October 18, 2018, at the same address.

He also admitted possessing indecent images of children at the same address between July 12 and October 20, 2018.