'Depraved' Elgin child rapist locked up for 13 years
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AN ELGIN child rapist who photographed his horrific abuse of a two-year-old girl to share online was jailed for 13 years today.
Predator Matthew Sinclair (28) was caught after he left his mobile phone on to charge and a woman looked at it and found messages on an app.
A judge told Sinclair at the High Court in Edinburgh: "In these courts we are depressingly familiar with the depths to which some individuals will sink to satisfy their urges.
"Even so, some behaviour still has the power to shock and yours surely has," said Michael O'Grady QC.
The judge said the depravity, cynicism and cruel indifference with which he abused the child, who was little more than a baby, was "quite beyond description".
The judge told the sex offender: "You do, at the very least at times, show a considerable lack of empathy and a failure to recognise the horrendous nature of what you have done."
Mr O'Grady told Sinclair that such crimes were bound to attract a significant jail sentence and that he would have faced an 18-year prison term but for his early guilty plea.
The judge also ordered that Sinclair be kept under supervision for a further six years because of the "deeply disturbing" nature of the offences and fears that he may present a substantial risk on his eventual release.
The judge earlier told him that he had committed "acts of breathtaking wickedness and depravity".
Factory worker Sinclair previously admitted raping the child on August 11 this year and distributing or showing indecent photos on the same date.
Advocate depute Alex Prentice QC said: "The accused raped the child when she was two years old. The accused took indecent photographs of her and distributed these to an unknown person."
The woman who uncovered the abuse had looked at the contents of Sinclair's phone and discovered an app called Viber which she did not recognise.
On it she found a series of sexualised messages between Sinclair and another during which he asked the unidentified individual: "You got any taboos?"
His contact mentioned "kid sex" and Sinclair responded that he shared the same illicit interest.
Sinclair, currently in Inverness prison, sent images of the naked girl and his abusive acts from a house in Moray.
After police were alerted, cyber-crime experts found a conversation between Sinclair and a user called "anonymous" and discovered four indecent images of the child were sent.
Defence counsel Susan Duff said: "I cannot make anything he did any less awful. His crime is abhorrent."
She said there was a suggestion in a background report on Sinclair that he has difficulty discussing what he did and was attempting to absolve himself of responsibility,
Mrs Duff said: "In my submission, it is in fact the opposite. He knows the enormity of what he has done.
"It is a terrible crime – and he knows that," she said.
First-offender Sinclair was earlier placed on the sex offenders' register.
