A PARANORMAL expert was jailed for six years today after sexually molesting three boys during a 12-year catalogue of abuse.

Jason Love began his offending when he was only 12 years old and continued to abuse children through his teenage years and into adulthood.

Love, 43, committed sex offences against his victims in Renfrew and Paisley and in the Cranhill area of Glasgow between 1987 and 1999. One victim was targeted by him while they watched horror films together.

Love went on to develop a reputation as a demonologist and paranormal and occult investigator and gave lectures in his field internationally.

He advertised that he undertook investigations into poltergeist attacks, demonic possession and witchcraft and the occult.

Love, of Cartside, Glasgow, also worked as a psychiatric nurse but was suspended in 2016 after the sex abuse allegations came to light.

He denied the allegations but was earlier convicted of five offences of assault, indecent assault and indecent behaviour committed against the three boys.

A judge told him at the High Court in Edinburgh that the jury had found him guilty of several serious offences.

Lord Kinclaven said: "There is no alternative to a significant custodial sentence. No other method of dealing with you is appropriate."

The judge said: "A significant part of your offending took place when you were very young, although it extended into your teenage years and latterly into your twenties when you were 24."

Lord Kinclaven said he accepted that Love was a first offender and that he has not offended again since 1999.

Love began abusing his first victim when the child was only three years old and it later escalated into more serious sexual offending. He also carried out sex acts on a second boy who was aged between five and seven at a house in Paisley and a cemetery in Renfrew.

He exposed himself to the third boy when the victim was aged between 11 and 13 and simulated sex in his presence and made him carry out a sex act on him.

Defence counsel Euan Dow told the court: "There is little I can say in relation to the offences. The accused has maintained the position he advanced during the course of the trial. That remains his position."

Mr Dow said although Love was 12 when the offending began the most serious charge he was convicted on was committed when he was an adult.

Love was placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely.