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A former Edinburgh hypnotherapist has been designated a sex offender and is to be deported from the US after having sex with a 14-year-old boy in a Florida hotel room.

An Orange County court ordered the immediate return of 28-year-old Sarah McGill’s passport after she was found guilty of lewd or lascivious battery, known as statutory rape in the UK.

Julio Semino, Court Support Manager for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, said: “Ms. McGill received five years sex offender probation. She was adjudicated guilty as a sex offender.

“Her passport was ordered to be returned to her and she was directed to immediately leave the country.

“Her probation is to terminate upon her leaving the US.”

She initially begged officers to let her off with a slap on the wrist as she was “scared” of jail.

In police interviews released to a Sunday newspaper, McGill, originally from Galashiels, said: “We didn’t just talk. He wanted to touch me.

We were talking and one thing led to another.

That was it. “I wish I never took him upstairs. I feel like such an idiot.”

McGill, who ran her own clinical hypnotherapy business in Edinburgh, was taken into custody on April 7 after the teenager allegedly paid her $US480 (£340) for sex.

McGill, posing under the alias Sophia Belle, was said to have been approached by the 14-year-old, who told police his life was boring and that he was looking for a way to “spice things up”.

The teen made contact with her while searching online for prostitutes on Quora.com – a website known to carry escort ads.

McGill and the boy allegedly started texting each other before they arranged to meet in a Marriott hotel room in Orlando.

The victim told police McGill had met him on the first floor of the hotel near the elevator.

After sex, the boy claims he paid McGill using a mix of $50 and $20 notes before leaving the hotel. Asked by police how old she thought the teen was, she said: “Maybe 16. He was really young looking for his age. I believed what he said that he was 18. He looked younger.”

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Edinburgh hypnotherapist guilty of sex with boy, 14 - chucked out US