A 27-year-old man from Ayr has avoided a custodial sentence after admitting he posed as a fellow professional footballer to trick Premier League and Championship players into sending him naked photographs of themselves. William Kirkpatrick, now living in Glasgow city centre, was sentenced at Ayr Sheriff Court after pleading guilty to two fraud charges carrying a significant sexual element, resulting in his placement on the sex offenders register.
Kirkpatrick’s scheme unfolded over June and July 2024, when he messaged a Sheffield Wednesday player on WhatsApp on 16 June, claiming the footballer could be added to the team’s group chat if he sent two naked images. The player complied, sending the photographs as requested. Kirkpatrick then went on to target a player at Premier League club Nottingham Forest on 1 July, sending a message that read: “I’ve got your welcome forfeit. Slips or birthday suit.”
How the scam expanded
According to the court, the Sheffield Wednesday player was also persuaded to hand over the phone numbers of his teammates, allowing Kirkpatrick to widen his deception and target further professional footballers using the same method. The Nottingham Forest player told police he had been left frightened by the messages, having believed they had genuinely come from another player, and said he feared the situation could affect his career.
How he was caught
The scam began to unravel when Sheffield Wednesday teammates realised the messages sent in their names were fake and told Kirkpatrick they had not sent them. Police Scotland traced the offending back to Kirkpatrick and raided his home, where officers seized an iPhone found to contain naked images of men, including the footballers he had targeted. The court heard that although the images had been kept on the device, there was no evidence Kirkpatrick had shared, sold or distributed them further, and the photographs were later confirmed to have been destroyed.
During police questioning, Kirkpatrick made full admissions, telling officers he had carried out the deception purely for his own sexual gratification.
What the court heard
Defence lawyer Quentin Muir acknowledged the unusual nature of the case during sentencing. “These offences are very unusual and relate to professional footballers,” he said. “The background to the deception being that the accused sent messages to them claiming he was another professional footballer and invited them to send what you might call initiation photos. There was no financial gain from this and it does seem somewhat odd that people with such public profiles would have correspondence without any form of investigation but that is where we are. He did this for his own sexual gratification but there has been no attempt to publish these images.”
Sheriff Siobhan Connelly told Kirkpatrick the offending had caused real harm to his victims, despite ultimately deciding against a custodial sentence. “This is a serious offence. You are entirely to blame for these actions,” she said. “You seemed to be engaged in an obsessive scheme where you and managed to get the telephone numbers of these individuals and then sent these messages. It caused them significant harm and distress. This is the type of offence which could attract a custodial sentence.”
Sentence handed down
Kirkpatrick was ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work within a year and made subject to a home curfew between 8pm and 6am for two months, enforced through electronic tagging. He will remain under social work supervision for three years and has been placed on the sex offenders register for five years. He was warned that breaching any of the court’s conditions could result in imprisonment.
