Extort: One man hit his full allowed overdraft limit trying to pay Sutherland off. Pic: © STV
Men using adult and gay chat lines were threatened with exposure to their friends, families and employers if they failed to hand over substantial sums of cash.
The men were told that their conversations about underage sex with girls and boys were being recorded and would be passed to the police if they did not pay up.
However, they were actually being targeted by a blackmailer from Edinburgh, after being led into the conversations.
At Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Tuesday, 19-year old Kelz Sutherland pled guilty to nine charges of extortion dating from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2009. The men involved, who were aged between 32 and 65 and from all over Britain, had handed over a total of £87,700.
Sutherland also admitted attempting to extort a further £28,000 from two men.
Fiscal Depute, Graeme Jessop, said the scheme only came to light when one of the men, who had been told to pay £8000, did not pay up after a friend advised him to go to the police.
A surveillance operation was mounted and the man's phone was monitored. Calls demanding payment led the police to Sutherland's home in Edinburgh’s Bath Street, where officers found personal details, including the men’s telephone numbers, home addresses, and places of work on his lap-top computer, as well as details of various bank accounts.
Mr Jessop explained that when the men were on the chat line they were "steered into conversations about under-age sex" by what appeared to be one person and then another person would interupt, stating they were a monitor and the conversations would have to be reported. The demand was then made for money to prevent this happening.
The Fiscal said some of the men had been extremely stressed by the events. He said one had to go into hospital, one thought it had been a factor in his being diagnosed with epilepsy and another went into maximum overdraft with his bank.
When Sheriff Deirdre MacNeill QC said she would be deferring sentence to allow for a range of reports, Sutherland became extremely emotional.
He shouted from the dock: "They are the paedophiles. These men say they are victims, why did they give me the money in the first place? Why is it me that's sitting here and not them?"
His defence solicitor, Fiona Cooper, said Sutherland's position was that these men had contacted the chat lines themselves and he was not the person who had led them into inappropriate conversations.
She said: "It is a matter of a great deal of stress for him.
"He feels he is being targeted as a paedophile himself. He sees himself as taking action to stop people who are paedophiles. He does not see how these people have done nothing wrong".
Ms Cooper added that other people had been involved in the scheme and it was a matter of concern to her client that he was the only one being prosecuted. She said she would make a fuller plea in mitigation when the case returned to court.
Sheriff MacNeill said it was obvious there were other persons involved and deferred sentence until later this month.
