Firefighter stops texting school ‘he had sex with’ after voice memos ‘drive him crazy’

Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service officer Scott Cameron admits engaging in sexual activity but claims he thought he was over 16.

Scott Cameron

A firefighter who allegedly had sex with a schoolgirl in his car stopped texting her when she received voicemails from a group of people who were “getting him in trouble”. Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service officer Scott Cameron is on trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of a series of sexual offenses against children.

The 39-year-old man, of Harewell Road, Norris Greenis accused of telling a teenager, whom he met when she was 13, that she was “gorgeous” before asking him to send her nude pictures and arranging a date with her in the woods. The father of the three children admits that he engaged in sexual activity with the applicant – who the prosecution say he met when he and other officers attended an open school day to recruit new cadet firefighters – but claims he thought she was over 16.

During the trial on Friday, November 29, the jury of seven men and five women heard evidence from Cameron’s second police interview. During the voluntary interview on February 22 this year, conducted at Huyton Police station Cameron said he “started getting messages on Snapchat from accounts he didn’t know” before a “woman came up to him one day recognizing him from her school” telling him apparently she was a sixth grader.

The court heard that over several months Cameron and the teenager exchanged around 7,000 messages on WhatsApp. But he told police the conversation ended on January 23 this year, when he received voice notes from the teenager and others. He said in the voice notes that people said “You’re the one who’s 38 years old and you talked to a 15-year-old.”

He said in the interview that he then blocked the account because “they were taking away my hope”. He told interviewing officers the teenager said she was over 16, but added: “I didn’t ask for her driving licence.”

He told police officers: “I’ve only ever wanted to do the right thing with my life… to get into the job I’m doing, I’ve wanted to do it for many years. It’s all about helping people… getting into a situation. like that blew me to pieces.” He added: “I never want to do bad things to people…it’s a struggle to find myself in this situation.”

The firefighter told officers that between January and May 2023 he visited schools to encourage students to become fire cadets. He told officers that after receiving the Snapchat messages, the girl approached him while he was on his way to pick up his son from school. When asked by officers if it was a chance encounter, Cameron said “I was doing that route quite a bit.”

He said he then started receiving WhatsApp messages but did not know how the girl got his number. He told police the girl told him she had been sexually assaulted Croxteth Park and had asked him for help.

Cameron said he told the girl: “I’m a firefighter, I go out every day and help people. I’m not a vigilante, I can’t do that for you.” But he said the messages continued with the girl saying she knew his partner’s name. He told officers she texted: “I hate your partner, your bird, I want to kill her. I want to stab her, I hope something happens to her.”

Asked by police officers why she said that, Cameron told them the complainant said “because she has you and I don’t”. The defendant proceeded to tell officers that the girl, who was living “a fantasy”, would send “hundreds of voice notes over and over” and “had to delete, delete, delete”. He said in the interview that the teenager sometimes told him he took ecstasy pills from gold bars and drank alcohol.

Cameron told police officers that the complainant had sent him sexually explicit images, but he would “delete the whole conversation with them”. The police then read messages between the devices of the teenager and the defendant where the former refers to the pregnancy and says “you did it in me”.

Cameron told police officers: “It’s not mine, it’s nothing to do with me. It’s not about me, but about the boy he told me about.” The defendant told officers that the teenager was making a joke about a previous situation. He also told police officers: “When I was talking to her about anything sexual, it was more about what had happened before and I was trying to get information.”

The defendant refused to hand over the PIN on his phone, telling them there was personal stuff on it involving his partner. Officers asked Cameron if he was attracted to young girls”, to which he replied “absolutely not”. He said the situation made him “absolutely sick to his stomach”.

During his opening statement earlier this week, Steven Ball told the court Cameron met the girl when he and other fire officers attended an open day at her school to recruit new fire cadets and as part of an ongoing project.. One of the defendant’s classmates was said to have “made an impression” on the pupils to such an extent that the teenager and her friend made him a handwritten card which they later left at a fire station.

This letter “complimented him on the work he did” and asked him a series of questions about his role, as well as the complainant’s phone number and their ages. Mr Ball said “events took a sinister turn” around a month later, saying: “Somehow, the prosecution say, Scott Cameron got hold of her number and in the messages he sent he was pretending to be someone else. “

The court heard the pair exchanged messages and were complimented on looking “gorgeous”. Mr Ball said that about a month later, the defendant started asking her to send him photos, with the girl recalling that she “was on holiday abroad when she was asked for bikini pictures”. Mr Ball told the court that other requests were made for nude photos, with the requests then “turned into threats”.

Mr Ball said that about 10 months after he visited her school, Cameron “told her who he really was” after initially posing as his classmate. The court heard Cameron asked to meet the girl, with the pair meeting “regularly” and on one occasion she “sneaked” out of her home and had sex with him in his car. But she later deleted his phone number after he allegedly became “argumentative” with her in his messages.

At the opening of the prosecution, the court heard that “sexual contact is admitted to have occurred” by the defendant.Mr Ball telling the jury: ‘The focus of the trial will be on whether you are certain to disprove that Scott Cameron reasonably believed he was 16 at the time. Prosecutors say this was not a one-off or random encounter. where one mistake might be made, but this is a case which is the chronicle of a man exercising his own choices, who knew exactly what he was doing, and made use of all the wider experiences acquired. as an adult to exploit an impressionable and consistent young woman of 13 or 14, a young woman who was the object of his attention.”

Cameron, who is represented by Kate Morley, denies a total of 11 sex offences. He is expected to testify on Monday. The trial, before Judge David Swinnerton, continues.