Firefighter abused girl who sent card to station

Scott Cameron pretended to be a colleague when he began to text the teenager

A former firefighter groomed and abused a 13-year-old girl after finding her phone number in a card she had sent to a station following a visit to a school.

"Manipulative paedophile" Scott Cameron, 40, began to text the girl and "abused his position of power as a fireman, to groom, exploit and sexually abuse an impressionable young girl" who admired his profession, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said.

Cameron was earlier found guilty at a trial at Liverpool Crown Court of a range of sexual offences against the teenager.

He had told Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service - which sacked him - that he had thought the girl was 16, despite her saying she was 13 in the card.

Cameron was 37 when staff from the station had gone to a school in Merseyside for a community visit.

The girl sent a handwritten card addressed to another firefighter after the visit, which said how much she admired him and how much she enjoyed the visit.

Cameron saw the card, which included her phone number, and began to text her pretending to the other firefighter.

'Multiple lies'

The message turned sexual, and Cameroon began to demand she send him nude photographs, telling the victim she was "gorgeous" and even offering to pay for the images.

Cameron began to meet his victim in secret meetings where he "engaged in serious sexual activity with her several times", police said

The abuse - which took place between 2022 and 2024 - was discovered when officers found the sexualised messages on the victim's phone while carrying out a different investigation.

An image of the handwritten card from the teenager was found on Cameron's phone when he was arrested.

He denied he had any contact or sexual activity with the girl, and even suggested she had been harassing him.

Cameron admitted to the abuse after being shown evidence, but insisted he thought she was 16, and denied contacting her pretending to be other firefighter.

Georgiana Panteli, from the CPS, said: "Scott Cameron is a manipulative paedophile whose own wishes and desires were all that mattered to him.

"He has told lies, in fact multiple lies, and the biggest lie was to suggest that he hadn't had a sexual relationship with the victim, when he eventually admitted that he had."

She added Hatton was a grown man who "knew exactly what he was doing".