A north-east oil worker has avoided jail after he admitted downloading thousands of indecent images of children while looking for porn to take offshore.
Alan Sutherland appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court yesterday to be sentenced having previously admitted downloading a 2,440 pictures over the course of five months.
He further admitted being in possession of three indecent videos of children on March 10 last year – the day he was caught for the illicit images by police.
The offences were carried out while he lived at 9 Allandale Gardens, Kintore.
As officers searched the property, the 60-year-old told officers it would have been “purely accidental” if they discovered any illegal material on his devices.
But yesterday fiscal depute David Bernard said he had deliberately downloaded the material while searching for pornography online to take offshore.
He said: “The accused stated he downloaded porn from web sites of young teenage girls but insisted he was only attracted to girls aged 16 or over.
“He would download the images onto one of three flash drives and used them for his own sexual gratification.”
He said the images were forensically examined and were mainly of boys and girls ranging from infants to age 14.
He said 947 of the obscene images were classed as being at level A – the highest end of the scale.
Representing the first offender, solicitor Les Green said his client fully accepted what he had done and was now going to need psychological help.
He said: “He accepts that he had been viewing adult porn and these came onto his machine and he saw it. Having seen it he was drawn to it and accepts that he did look further.”
Sheriff Annella Cowan placed him on the joint sex offenders’ programme, and ordered him to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work within the next year. Sutherland, of 144 Midstocket Road, Aberdeen, was also put on the sex offenders’ register for three years.
