A SHOP worker in Greenock has been found guilty of coercing a 13-year-old girl into sexual activity in exchange for vapes.

Omar Khan sent the girl a string of indecent messages and told her he would “fire into her if she was older”.

The 28-year-old also sent indecent images of himself to another 13-year-old girl and to two more girls who were aged 12 at the time.

A jury at the town’s sheriff court found him guilty of sexually assaulting the girl at Lights and Gifts in Jamaica Street, which is owned by Khan’s family.

The jury also convicted him of four other charges.

Khan had earlier admitted selling vapes to the young girl.

In her closing speech to jurors, procurator fiscal depute Kirstin Brierley said: "The girl came into the shop to get vapes. Only the accused was in the shop.

“They engaged in small talk, and she said that he was looking her up and down.

"He said he did have the two flavours she wanted in the back. She followed him and stood at the door.

"She said he was still talking to her. He moved forward and he closed the door.

"He then pushed her against the wall with his hands.

"At this point she was pushing him, trying to get away. He kissed her neck and her shoulders."

Ms Brierly said the attack continued with Khan turning the girl around, putting his hands up her top and touching her inappropriately, before trying to pull his own trousers and the girl’s trousers down.

She continued: “She was shouting for him to get off and was crying as she ran out, leaving the money and the vapes behind.”

Dismissing Khan’s claims that the incident was ‘banter’, Ms Brierley told the jury: “Omar Khan said that this was flirtatious and that he thought she was 16 years old.

“I put it to you that this was nonsense and that Mr Khan knew, by his own admission in his messages, that she was under 16.”

In his closing speech to the jury, defence advocate Joseph Barr said they were about to make the biggest decision of his client’s life.

He told the jury the messages were “clearly banter”.

Singling out part of the exchange of messages between the pair, Mr Barr said: “She replied ‘hahahahahaha’. I say to you that there was no shock, there was no alarm and there was no distress.”

Mr Barr argued that there was no corroboration for the sexual assault charge and said there was a question over when the attack took place.

He pointed out that the accusations of sexual assault did notcome up until September 2022, and said the allegations of offences against the other girls were “absolute nonsense”.

Mr Barr said: “Mr Khan has admitted selling vapes to those under the age of 18. He did not need to take the stand [to give evidence], but he did.

“He should be acquitted of these charges.

Earlier in the trial, Khan denied coercing the girl, and said that while he admitted sending the messages, they were not for sexual gratification.

The court heard that in the messages he said 'what age are you btw, 'alright well don't tell anybody you've got me on this', and 'if you were older I'd be telling you you're good looking too’ but I can't say that lol’.

The jury unanimously found Khan guilty of sending indecent messages to the girl “intentionally and for the purposes of obtaining sexual graitification of or humiliating, distressing or alarming” her between November 2021 and May 2022.

They also returned a unanimous guilty verdict on a charge of coercing the girl into sexual activity in exchange for vapes between the same dates, and convicted him by a majority verdict of sexually assaulting her.

Majority guilty verdicts were also returned on charges of intentionally sending indecent messages to the three other girls between January and May 2022, and of intentionally sending sexual images of himself to another 13 year old girl.

Sentence was deferred for background reports until later this month and Khan, of Kilmarnock Road in Glasgow, was released on bail.