Highland man caught with 'distressing' child images escapes jail
A man who was caught with more than 15,000 child porn images and 790 videos of child pornography in his computer has escaped a jail sentence.
Procurator Fiscal Alison Wylie at an earlier hearing said intelligence received by police from another department showed Alan Macleod’s IP address on the computer at his home in Friars Street in Inverness had been used in relation to indecent images of children.
Police searched his home on August 25, 2010.
In court on Friday Sheriff David Sutherland heard 46 year-old Macleod was a first offender who lived alone and suffered from physical and mental health problems.
He appeared in court with a support worker.
His solicitor Willie Young said Macleod, who admitted between July 1, 2008 and August 25, 2010 at his home address having indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of children, was receiving support for physical and mental health problems.
"He suffers from agoraphobia and is a socially isolated individual. He has a problem with alcohol abuse and prescription diazepam."
The solicitor said when Macleod was on alcohol and these prescription drugs he accessed the sites.
"He was guilt ridden and then would delete them. There is no question of him having transmitted these images to others."
Mr Young said Macleod accepted the gravity of the situation he found himself in.
He cooperated fully with the police and the solicitor said he hoped the court could deal with the case by way of a non custodial disposal and that Sheriff Sutherland found merit in the recommendations of the criminal justice social work background report before him.
Depute procurator fiscal Ms Wylie at the earlier hearing told Inverness Sheriff Court the images were ‘distressing’.
Macleod was asked by police if there was any indecent images of children and he said that there were and he got them from the internet.
Ms Wylie said: "He was asked about search terms he used and he gave an answer that was well known in those circles that would give him access to these sites."
The fiscal said the hard drive that was recovered had "drill holes" in it, but they didn’t go right the way through so the information on it was able to be recovered.
The court was told a total of 12,789 images and a total 461 videos were found, ranging from level one to level five on the hard drive.
She said: "The videos were described as being at the graphic end of the scale, many had sound, which made them more distressing."
Police also found a computer which contained 1,807 images and 329 videos, again all raging from level one to level five, along with a back-up file which had 584 images on it, bringing the total to 15,220 images and 790 videos.
After hearing the plea in mitigation from Macleod’s solicitor, Sheriff Sutherland said he had to take into account he was a first offender. But what was of greater concern was public safety.
He told Macleod he had decided to deal with the case by the imposition of a three year probation order.
Macleod was placed on the Sex Offenders Register and will have to attend the Child Sex Offenders programme and comply with any guidance from his support officer.
He also banned Macleod from the consumption of alcohol and ordered him to complete 200 hours of community service.