Teenage blackmailer extorted £90,000 using sex chat lines

Sentencing 19-year old Kelz Sutherland at Edinburgh Sheriff Court today, Sheriff Deirdre Macneill QC told him that rarely had she heard of such a background of trouble in younger years than his.

However, she added, his behaviour had been despicable and there was strong indication that his behaviour was compulsive and he was a high risk to others.

Sutherland pled guilty last month to nine charges of extortion dating from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2009. The men involved, aged between 32 and 65, from all over Britain, handed over a total of 87,700.

He also admitted attempting to extort 8,000 from another man. The scheme came to light when the man, 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 Bath Street, Edinburgh. There officers found personal details of the men, including their telephone numbers, home addresses, and places of work on his lap-top computer. There was also details of various bank accounts.

When the men, who included teachers, an IT contractor, a railway manager and the company secretary for a charity, dialled the chat line, they were put through to Sutherland in his bedroom in Portobello.

During their chat there were conversations about under-age sex with girls and boys. Using a different voice, he then "interrupted" the call claiming he was the chat line monitor and that the conversation was illegal and would be reported to the authorities.

After obtaining personal details from the men, Sutherland said the calls had been recorded and threatened to expose the callers to their family, friends or employers, but indicated this could be avoided if they paid for the recordings to be wiped.

Police investigations revealed a Lloyds TSB bank account in the name of Sutherland's mother, Mary. In 2008, around 134,000 had been paid into it.

When Ms Sutherland was interviewed she said her son had the sole use of the account and bank card and that any correspondence from the bank was given to him unopened. Her son, she said, worked as an escort and for a chat line company, talking "sexy" to callers. She thought he was earning 500 a week for this. Ms Sutherland denied any knowledge of the blackmail scheme and was released without charge.

The court heard that none of the 87,700 had been recovered and had been spent by the accused on an extravagant lifestyle involving regularly using chauffer driven executive cars while on nights out with friends.

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. "It is a matter of a great deal of stress for him" she said.

"He feels he is being targeted as a paedophile himself. He sees himself as taking action to stop people who are paedophiles".

Sutherland, she said, had a very troubled family background. He had been abused by an older man and introduced to adult chat lines by him at a young age and this had coloured his view of them. His view was that the people he had spoken to were paedophiles and given what had happened to him it was particularly stressful. He did, however, admit extorting money from them.

Sutherland, she added, claimed he was not the only person involved and felt extremely aggrieved he was the only person to be prosecuted. "Certain other people were happy to freeload off him and benefit from an extremely extravagant lifestyle and encourged him to continue".

Some of these people, whom he had regarded as friends, had gone to the Press with incorrect and inaccurate information which had led to high-profile articles. This had made him extremely unpopular while in custody and he had been placed under protection.