A kids’ football coach has admitted sending explicit videos of himself to a paedophile hunter who was posing as a 14-year-old girl.
We told last April how twisted James Devine was arrested at one of his own training sessions. The married dad-of-four was busted by activists who snared him online and then confronted him in person.
Devine, 42, pled guilty on Friday to indecent communications and will return to Dunfermline Sheriff Court next month for sentence. The boys’ club he founded in Cardenden, Fife, has since folded.
Sick Devine’s outing was streamed live on social media with the video viewed 18,000 times. It showed him in his coaching gear with his head in his hands, then having to face his distraught wife, before police arrived. He was led away to catcalls from angry locals.
Devine spent two months thinking he was luring a 14-year-old girl into his warped secret double-life. But the “youngster” he was grooming was a paedophile hunter based in Yorkshire.
He sent her explicit videos and encouraged her to commit sex acts and send him photos, but he was nailed by a tattoo of his wife’s name on his hand. On the tape, he told his accusers: “I’m so sorry, honestly, I really am.”
Last week, Devine was bailed for social work reports and placed on the sex offenders register. The club he founded was named in honour of a tragic local legend who starred for Celtic and Scotland.
Goalkeeper John Thomson’s life was cut short at only 22 after his head accidentally collided with the knee of Rangers striker Sam English during an Old Firm match in 1931. But his memory is revered in Cardenden and a local park bears his name.
Devine – originally from Glasgow and now of Coatbridge, Lanarkshire – set up the John Thomson Academy last year, and it coached dozens of local boys and girls from the age of five up to teenage years.
He said at the time: “Thomson Park is part of his legacy and we hope that the football academy will add another strand to that.”
Devine received funding from the community council and the John Thomson Celtic Supporters’ Club. Ex-Parkhead striker Frank McAvennie was guest of honour at the Academy’s Christmas party last year.
Officials at the club were floored by the arrest of their head coach. A statement on Facebook hours after his arrest read: “We
are as shocked as everybody else.”
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond – Sign up to our daily newsletterhere.