A GALASHIELS man who breached a court supervision order for the third time has been jailed for 10 months and been put on the Sex Offenders' Register for 10 years.

Peter Mulvey, 43, was given a Community Payback Order in June 2019 which meant he would be under supervision for three years.

Last September he was warned of the consequences of breaching the order again after he admitted contacting two women via Facebook Messenger without informing social workers.

He also engaged in a conversation via Facebook without notifying social services staff of the identity of the person he was talking to.

Selkirk Sheriff Court was told Mulvey had since breached the supervision order again.

Defence lawyer Stephanie Clinkscale pointed out Mulvey had kept all the attendance appointments and had not committed any further criminal offences since the order began.

However, she accepted he had breached the contact aspect of the order.

Ms Clinkscale said: "The supervision is just not working. There have been issues throughout with that."

She added that Mulvey stayed with his grandmother and provided a level of care for her and asked for an alternative to custody to be imposed.

Sheriff Peter Paterson said he accepted the argument that Mulvey had not re-offended since committing the original offence.

But he explained that this was now the third time Mulvey had failed to comply with the court order and that was unacceptable.

Mulvey was sentenced to 10 months in prison, reduced from 12 months, and was also made subject to the sex offenders' notification requirements for a period of 10 years.

Mulvey was banned from accessing the internet without prior approval for three years after admitting engaging in indecent online communications with someone claiming to be a child.

He had pleaded guilty to that charge in April 2019 and was sentenced at Edinburgh Sheriff Court two months later.

Besides not being allowed to go online without prior approval from a supervising social worker, he must disclose details of any devices he can access the internet on and must inform social workers of any friendships, associations or intimate or domestic relationships he forms.

He must also declare contact information for anyone he communicates with either directly or indirectly.

That sentence was handed out after Mulvey was caught in an online sting at Edinburgh’s Royal Commonwealth Pool staged by a group set up to name and shame alleged sex offenders in December 2018, then went on to send multiple messages to someone he thought was a young girl.