Sexually assaulted a 7 year old girl and had prior convictions of sexual abuse, including towards a young male.

Heavily tattooed Jai Pennycuick, now 39, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for abusing a young girl in Edinburgh's Broomhouse in the 1990s.

The victim only reported the incident to police in May 2020 after speaking to specially trained officers. Pennycuick was subsequently questioned by officers as part of an investigation into historic sex crimes.

Prosecutor Bill McVicar told the High Court in Glasgow: "He broke down crying and subsequently gave as full an account of the incident as he could remember. He accepted what he had done was wrong and that he now had to face the consequences of what he had done."

Pennycuick, a construction site labourer, pleaded guilty to a charge of lewd and libidinous conduct towards the child on an occasion between June 1996 and June 1997. The girl would have been as young as seven years old at the time.

Mr McVicar revealed that Pennycuick, from Pilton, Edinburgh, was convicted of a number of sex crimes in England and Wales in the late 90s, including indecent assault of a boy. Until his imprisonment, Pennycuick, who describes himself as single, had been attempting to find a partner on internet dating sites. One recent post reads: "Hi my name is jai I'm looking for a long term-relationship. I live in Edinburgh I have no kids never been married I like the outdoors and traveling I work on building sites."

Kenneth Cloggie, defending, stated: "He cannot change the past and he is ashamed of that."

Sentencing, Lord Matthews acknowledged that Pennycuick was also young at the time of the offense but emphasized that he must now face the consequences as an adult. The judge reduced the jail term from two years to 18 months due to the guilty plea and further placed Pennycuick on the Sex Offenders Register (SOR) for 10 years.

Pennycuick will be required to notify police of any change of address upon his release from prison. As a Registered Sex Offender, he will be subject to close monitoring by Police Scotland and criminal justice social workers and could face prosecution for any breach of the SOR.