A MUSSELBURGH man has been placed on the sex offenders' register after admitting a series of offences involving children.

Jamie Shiel appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court to plead guilty to charges, taking place over several months in 2022, including possessing and distributing indecent images of children.

He also admitted sending sexual images and written communication over social media platforms to six accounts he believed belonged to older children.

Shiel also lodged guilty pleas to communicating with a woman he believed to be an adult and was the mother of a child aged between 13 and 16, and requesting the woman engage in sexual activity with her daughter.

Court papers state that the 23-year-old asked the woman to remove the clothes of the child, commit a sex act on her, and take photographs of the act and send them to him, all on April 14, 2022.

Shiel, of Ashgrove, also admitted other offences involving the child too graphic to disclose in the Courier.

No narration was read out in court during last week’s court appearance and a written version of the events is to be prepared for the next calling of the case later this year.

Sentence deferred

Sheriff Matthew Auchincloss accepted Shiel’s guilty pleas to the five charges and placed him on the sex offenders' register on an interim basis.

Full sentence was deferred to next month for the preparation of social work reports.

Shiel pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children at his home between July 18, 2021, and July 1, 2022.

He admitted to distributing indecent images of children to others at his home between March 25 and April 15, 2022.

He also pleaded guilty to sending sexual images and sexual written communication to who he believed were six children aged between 13 and 16 at his home between February 10 and July 1, 2022.

Shiel admitted intentionally causing who he believed to be a child aged between 13 and 16 to participate in sexual activity on various occasions between February 10 and June 30, 2022.

And he admitted a fifth offence of, while acting with another, engaging in sexual activity with who believed to be a child aged between 13 and 16 on April 14, 2022.