Former youth football coach's 'unduly lenient' sentence overturned

Craig Raeburn,58, was handed a £1,000 fine in January after he breached the SOPO by repeatedly downloading the Firefox internet browser to his mobile phone and deleting it.

The serial offender has served three prison terms for sexual offences and was handed the non-custodial disposal at the start of the year following a hearing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

Sheriff Douglas Keir had told the former NHS manager in January that it was “quite troubling” that he had breached an order which was passed to allow the police to monitor his activities.

The terms of the order meant he could not delete mobile phone applications without receiving permission from law enforcement agencies.

READ MORE: Craig Raeburn spared jail for breaching sex order by Googling himself

Sheriff Keir’s decision in January prompted Crown lawyers to go to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh in a bid to increase the sentence given to Raeburn.

Today (Friday), appeal judges Lord Carloway, Lord Woolman and Lord Matthews ordered that Raeburn serve 12 months in jail.

They imposed the sentence after hearing prosecutor Chris McKenna say Sheriff Keir was mistaken to fine Raeburn given his previous convictions.

He said: “I submit that the non custodial sentence imposed on the respondent was unduly lenient.”

In 2017, Raeburn was jailed for 14 months when he was caught with more than 1,000 indecent images of children on his computer.

He was arrested for a second time just weeks after being released from this sentence after he tried to arrange a meet with somebody he thought was a young boy.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court

However, he had been set up by the Wolf Pack Hunters UK online group.

Raeburn, originally of Port Seton, was then jailed for 20 months and handed a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) and placed on the sex offenders' register for 10 years.

In 2019, he was jailed for a third time, for 15 months, when he admitted breaching the SOPO after being caught by police officers attempting to search for men on the gay dating app Grindr.

In January 2022, Raeburn, a dad of two, pleaded guilty to breaching the SOPO for a second time.

Depute procurator fiscal Alan Wickham had last year told Sheriff Keir that police officers had attended Raeburn’s home on an unannounced visit to check his IT devices, which is part of the SOPO conditions, at about 11am on December 23, 2020.

Mr Wickham said then that officers discovered that Raeburn, who was living in Haddington, had downloaded and then deleted the Firefox internet browser to his mobile phone a total of 52 times.

The mobile device was inspected by Police Scotland's cyber crime unit and Raeburn was arrested and charged with breaching the conditions of the sexual prevention order.

His solicitor Julie Torley told the court at the time: “In terms of the offence, he tells me he was living in shared accommodation at the time and had been Googling himself to see if his previous convictions could identify him.

“He also tells me he was attempting to delete historic [social media] profiles.

“In any event, he knows he was breaching the Sexual Offences Prevention Order and he is apologetic and remorseful.”

Ms Torley had asked Sheriff Douglas Keir to spare her unemployed client a custodial sentence. She said then that he would be able to pay a fine as his late father had left him an inheritance.

Raeburn had pleaded guilty to breaching the conditions of the SOPO by deleting an internet application without permission between December 5 and 23, 2020.

In deciding then not to jail Raeburn, Sheriff Keir said last year: “It is clearly quite troubling that it is not the first time you have breached the Sexual Offences Prevention Order.

“What I do take into account is that the offence dates back to over two years ago and there have been no further breaches in that time.

“That is the factor that allows me not to impose custody, but it is by a hair’s breadth.”

Raeburn had once coached children with East Lothian youth football outfit Cockenzie Star.

On Friday, defence advocate Chris Miller said he did not disagree with the submissions made by Mr McKenna. He said his client had already paid the £1,000 fine.

He added: “The appeal is not contested. It is accepted that the sentence fell outwith the reasonable range available to the sheriff.”

Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge, ordered Raeburn to be jailed for 12 months. He said he and and his colleagues took into account the fact that Raeburn had pleaded guilty and paid the fine.

Lord Carloway added: “We will issue our reasons for our decision in due course.”