Croy Paedophile Mark Kerr, a disgraced former SNP councillor is incarcerated following his conviction for grooming and assaulting six adolescent males.
Mark Kerr targeted victims, including an attempted rape at his residence in Croy, Lanarkshire. The 40-year-old primarily committed offences prior to his election as a councillor for the Kilsyth ward in 2017.
However, he proceeded to assault the last victim at a food bank in the hamlet in May 2020. Mark Kerr was ultimately apprehended subsequent to a police investigation into the abuse.
He refuted the allegations during an almost two-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow. Mark Kerr stated that he was the target of a vendetta that forced him to leave his residence of 32 years and destroyed his political career.
In often graphic detail, he insisted he was physically unable to do some of what was alleged claiming he was “a 40 year-old virgin”. But, prosecutors said he was a “predator – hiding in plain sight”.
Mark Kerr was today found guilty of a total of nine charges spanning between December 2010 and May 2020. The crimes were the attempted rape as well as sex offences against the five other male victims.
He was found not proven of raping one and not guilty for a separate sexual assault against another of the six. Mark Kerr was also found not proven of engaging in sexual activity with the teenager he was convicted of attempting to rape.
The first offender was visibly upset in the dock as the verdict was read out. Judge Douglas Brown told him: “Inevitably there will be a custodial sentence – your bail has been withdrawn and you will be remanded in custody.”
Mark Kerr was also put on the sex offenders register meantime. He will be sentenced next month.
Jurors heard how all the boys in the case were much younger than the former nationalist politician. Mark Kerr, now of Wishaw, Lanarkshire, got to know the first when he was in his mid-teens.
The then boy looked upon openly gay Kerr as a “mentor” as he came out himself. He said sexual activity with Mark Kerr first took place at a disused quarry when he was 15.
The victim – now in his mid 20s – said the older man then attacked him after they had earlier been at a local SNP function. He was asleep at the time at Kerr’s home.
Describing the 2015 attempted rape, he recalled: “I froze once I understood what was happening. I could not control my body. It did not allow me to do anything.”
Jurors heard how he later confronted Mark Kerr at knifepoint in the street. The victim’s mother had also turned up and she witnessed her son yelling: “Tell my mum what you done to me.”
Mark Kerr claimed he was innocent, but was said not to be able to meet the woman’s eyes. Kerr tormented another boy from around 2012.
Referring to lurid accounts of gay sex, he stated to the youngster: “Don’t knock it until you have tried it.” He went on to grab the worried teenager’s bottom.
The court heard Mark Kerr joined two boys on a camping trip pitching a tent near the Boathouse restaurant in Croy. He was guilty of molesting one of them in the tent, but acquitted of raping another at that time.
However, he did sexually assault the rape accuser in 2014 in Croy while he was asleep. In 2014, Mark Kerr targeted another of the teenagers by groping him and sending him sexually graphic messages online.
But, even after he had been elected to a position of power in the community, Kerr continued his offending. His last young victim was molested at a food bank set up to help people during the 2020 lockdown.
He told the trial: “I thought he was a nice guy. I do not see that now.”
Mark Kerr gave evidence during the trial and claimed he had been targeted after he had put a video of boys playing at a local disused quarry on his councillor Facebook page.
He said this was done purely to warn parents of the dangers. Mark Kerr sobbed as he told how he had been filmed being forced out of his home by locals and branded the “local nonce”.
But, in his speech to jurors, prosecutor Michael Macintosh said Mark Kerr was “a predator hiding in plain sight”. Mr Macintosh added: “You might come to the conclusion that behind the public persona, that friend to all, he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“A lot of people thought he was a good guy, but he was a man who used his position, age and role as an activist and mentor to engage in sustained grooming of teenage boys for his gratification.”
Sentencing was deferred for reports.
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