OUR LATEST ISSUE
SITE SEARCH
Gay News: A teenager who extorted £87,700 from men on gay chat lines has been jailed for forty-five months.
By: Nigel Robinson
Sutherland: "despicable"
Sutherland: "despicable"
"Despicable" teen blackmailer jailed for four years
23 September 2010
Kelz Sutherland, 19, ran the gay chat line from his bedroom in Edinburgh.
From there he tricked his victims into talking about underage sex, before threatening to go to the police with recordings of their conversations.
Sutherland would initiate the conversation, and then change his voice, pretending to be a chat room moderator.
He then told his victims that their call had been recorded and he would take the evidence to the police, unless they paid him thousands of pounds.
Between 1 January 2008 and 31 December 2009, Sutherland – who was charged and convicted under his real name of William Watson – blackmailed ten men between the ages of 35 to 62.
One elderly man was forced to pay out £34,000 after having been pursued and harassed on the phone by Sutherland for three months.
Sutherland used the money he extorted to fund an elaborate life of luxury, paying for chauffeurs and extravagant nights out, and he was only caught when one of his victims went to the police.
At Sutherland’s guilty plea in August, his defence had claimed that her client had viewed the men as paedophiles and that he had also been abused as a child.
However, in sentencing him to forty-five months, Sheriff Deirdre MacNeill said that his crimes had been “despicable” and that he posed a high risk to others.
Detective Inspector Richard Thomas who oversaw the investigation said that Sutherland had preyed on the sexuality and vulnerability of his victims, and added:
“In carrying out his extortions, Watson gave no consideration for the distress and trauma he was putting his victims through and showed himself to be a devious and manipulative individual.”
