A church elder gave a sex toy to a young shop worker after learning she’d split from her boyfriend.
James Panton, 61, delivered a tote bag containing the item to the woman along with a handwritten card.
It said she was “entering the full blossom of youthful womanhood”, adding we should be encouraged to “enjoy our body at all stages of our lives”.
At first the woman, who’s in her early 20s, believed the device was a “back massager” until showing it to a colleague who looked it up on Google.
After learning what it was, she told how she was “shocked” and told her grandparents who called police.
Panton, a retired biochemical scientist, went on trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Thursday charged with communicating indecently with the victim.
Sheriff Adrian Fraser found him guilty after both the accused and the woman gave evidence.
The woman, who can’t be named for legal reasons, told how she spoke to Panton when he visited another shop.
She said Panton came into her workplace with the gift as she prepared to start a shift.
He’d written on the envelope she should open it in her “own personal and private space”.
The woman said she felt it was a “nice gesture” at first and later believed it was a “back massager”.
She told the court how she showed the device to a colleague who found the same item for sale as a vibrator on the erotic shopping website Lovehoney.
The trial heard the accompanying card read: “If you consider it inappropriate please place it in the bin.
“If you accept it with the respect and honesty with which it is given then I’ll be glad and that’s the end of it.
“It is unmistakable now that you are entering the full blossom of youthful womanhood and, in recognition of that as one human to another human, it’s important for us to reach out sensitively and honestly to encourage each other to reach the fullest of our experiences as we explore who we are and to enjoy our body at all stages of our lives.
“We are all beautifully made.”
Giving evidence, dad-of-three Panton said he’d heard the woman had broken up with her boyfriend and thought she looked “quiet and forlorn” and was putting on weight.
He said: “I thought, I can’t let a young woman like that sit and feel sullen in the prime of her life.”
Panton added: “I was trying to instil in her self-worth and raise her self-image.”
He bought the item of Amazon, the court heard, but denied the gift was aimed at giving him sexual gratification. Panton said the device could be used to massage “sore muscles” as it advertised but acknowledged knowing the device could be used for “sensual purposes”.
Panton, a widower, added: “My problem is I’m a helper. I intervene.”
Later he told the trial: “At the time I thought (the vibrator) was suitable. I know now it wasn’t.
“My heart felt I was doing the right thing. There was no perverted gratification sought. It was done with integrity.”
He told the court it was the “most stupid, impulsive thing I’ve done in my whole life” and his arrest and trial had left him a “hollowed man”.
Sheriff Adrian Fraser convicted Panton of communicating indecently with the woman by sending a card and package to her place of work which was of an indecent and sexual nature.
The sheriff deferred sentence on Panton, of Dunbar, East Lothian, for reports, including a psychiatric evaluation, until next month and placed him on the sex offenders register.
