Midlothian pensioner found guilty of abusing vulnerable schoolgirls is facing jail


A Midlothian pensioner who sexually abused vulnerable schoolgirls is facing jail.
Lawton James Ramsay targeted two young girls by exposing himself and touching them during weekly visits to his home.
Ramsay, who is known as Jim, began abusing the youngsters when they were just just ten and 11-years-old.
The 77-year-old also abused the girls during car trips to the countryside by getting them to carry out sex acts on him.
And during a police interview the elderly predator even attempted to blame the girls by claiming they “instigated” the sexual contact between them and that he had fallen into “a trap”.
Ramsay stood trial on indictment at Edinburgh Sheriff Court this week and was found guilty by a jury of four charges of using lewd and libidinous practices towards the two girls on various occasions between 2005 and 2009.
Sheriff Alistair Noble placed Ramsay, from Mayfield, on the sex offenders’ register and deferred full sentence to next month.
The youngest victim, now aged 24, told the court the OAP forced himself on her while she drew pictures in his kitchen and with his wife in the next room.
The older victim, now 25, said that they would regularly visit Ramsay’s home he shared with his wife after their mother had passed away.
She said: “We used to visit him and his wife about once a week. His wife was there sometimes but sometimes she was at work.
“The relationship was good at first but then things started to happen – sexual stuff.”
Both women also described incidents when Ramsay, a retired blacksmith, took them out for trips in his car.
Ramsay’s police interview was played in full to the jury where he admitted having sexual contact with the girls, though he claimed he believed both of them to be over 16 at the time.
Ramsay claimed the older girl had “instigated” the sexual contact between them and said both girls had “wound him up sexually”.
He said: “About three of four years ago the girls were winding me up sexually by saying different things and doing things.
“I should have had the sense to stop it. It wasn’t intercourse but it was other things.
“I would never groom anybody – they just wound me up. I fell into the trap.
“I was like a father-figure – I loved those girls. But there was never a case of molesting them.”
Ramsay was found guilty of four charges, all at his home address between 1 April, 2005 and 21 July, 2009.
An allegation of having unlawful sexual intercourse with one of the girls was dropped from the indictment following the closure of the Crown case earlier this week.