A RELIGIOUS education teacher who was accused of plotting to have sex with a girl of 14 will not stand trial after judges ruled he was the victim of entrapment by undercover police officers.

Iain Parkinson, 52, used a swingers website to arrange a meeting with a woman and agreed to be collected at a Travelodge by her husband before returning to their home.

But the woman was actually an undercover police officer who was investigating possible links to child sex abuse.

Posing as a woman called “Lisa” the police sent messages to Parkinson, a religious education teacher at Kirkcaldy High School, on dating website Fabswingers.

They made arrangements for him to be picked up and be taken to the woman’s home to have sex with her, but when he turned up he was arrested.

During their conversations, the officer had made references to her fictitious 14-year-old daughter being involved in sexual activity with them. However when he appeared at Falkirk Sheriff Court charged with conspiring to have sex with an underage girl, Parkinson’s legal team argued that he had never expressed any interest in abusing children during the web chats.

A sheriff upheld their plea for the charges to be dropped but prosecutors appealed the decision.

Judges Lord Carloway, Lord Brodie and Lord Turnbull have now ruled in Parkinson’s favour following an appeal hearing.

In a written ruling, Lord Carloway, the Lord Justice General, said: “There was no evidence that the respondent had ever expressed any interest in sexual activity with children. When the existence of the daughter was referred to initially by the police, that provoked no reaction from the respondent.”