A CONVICTED sex offender, described as a “Walter Mitty character,” who posed as a prostitute to dupe unsuspecting men to pay him for sex, was jailed for 18 months today.
Antrim Crown Court heard that as well as posing as a prostitute, 29-year-old Scott Tootill incited one girl to become a prostitute and facilitated other women, who were already escorts, by arranging clients and a hotel room in his Limavady hometown.
In total Tootill, from Meadowvale Park in the Co Derry town, pleaded guilty to two counts of controlling the prostitution for gain and one of inciting someone to become a prostitute.
He also pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud by false representation in that he posed as an escort for hire in an effort to dupe unsuspected men on various dates in February last year.
Tootill also confessed to two charges of breaching a lifelong, court-imposed Sexual Offences Prevention Order by having mobile phones at his home and five further counts of breaching the requirements of the police sex offenders register.
Those charges detail how between December 28 2016 and March 4 last year, Tootill failed to tell police he was using five different aliases.
The court heard how police searched Tootill’s house on March 4 when an off-duty police officer reported he had witnessed him breaching court orders by having a mobile phone.
Prosecuting barrister Tessa Kitson told that in addition to evidence gleaned from the phones being examined, Tootill accepted he used the fake names and posed as a prostitute “as a means to financially exploit victims for his own reward.”
“He advertised himself on adult websites under the guise of female names to attract potential clients for sexual services....who would be expected to forward financial transactions to his bank account as directed but when the money was transferred, there would not be any sexual service,” explained the lawyer.
In relation to the charges of controlling prostitution, Mrs Kitson told the court how Tootill contacted women who were already working as prostitutes and “invited them to work at a hotel in Limavady” where he booked a room and arranged for clients to visit them.
Tootill told police that while the women charged £100, “he would be paid £20”.
Ms Kitson said that Tootill’s previous offences were “very relevant.”
In 2012 he was handed a five year sentence after he posed as a woman to set up a fake modelling agency so he could take photographs of young girls.
He had pleaded guilty to three counts of inciting sexual activity with a child and two of attempting to facilitate child prostitution or involvement in pornography in March 2011.
In court today, defence barrister Mark Barlow described Tootill as “something of a Walter Mitty character” who has never had a normal adult relationship with anyone outside of his family.
He submitted that apart from Tootill’s own confessions, there was no evidence or statement from the women he allegedly encouraged to become a prostitute and that “had he kept his mouth shut,” the only offences he would likely have faced was in relation to the SOPO breaches.
Judge Desmond Marrinan ordered Tootill to spend 18 months in jail and two years in licence.
The judge said that “to have an interest in sex is in human nature but with his record, his interest seems to be unhealthy.”
