A GALASHIELS pensioner has admitted sending sexual communications to a 12-year-old girl and asking her to send him “naughty” pictures.

Brian Edwards arranged to meet the person he knew as “Olivia” at the town’s Transport Interchange in April last year and told her, if anyone asked, to tell them she was his granddaughter.

The then 67-year-old, who also asked about sharing a bed and whether she would be wearing sexy underwear, called her a “naughty sweetheart” and told her “age was only a number”.

But Edwards, now 68, had been communicating with an undercover police officer who had set up a fake profile online which attracted his attention.

When officers raided his home in Tulley Court they found more than a hundred indecent images of children on a mobile phone.

Defence lawyer Ed Hulme told Selkirk Sheriff Court his client had acquired a brain injury due to past alcohol abuse.

Sheriff Peter Paterson deferred sentence for background reports until April 29 and Edwards was made subject to the notification requirements of the Sexual Offences Act – the length of which will be determined at the sentencing.