A teenager who downloaded indecent images of children avoided detention yesterday and was ordered to carry out the maximum 300 hours of unpaid community work as an alternative.
At Inverness Sheriff Court, 19 year old Peter Brown appeared for sentence after earlier admitting downloading over 1,400 still photographs and five videos featuring children and six videos and 15 indecent images of adults and animals.
The offences occurred between September and October 2014 when he lived at his parents home in Moss-side Road, Nairn.
Solicitor David Fitzpatrick said Brown was a schoolboy when he committed the offences and he was still a “vulnerable young adolescent”.
He said the social work report showed he came from a caring and supportive family.
The court had previously heard that Brown failed to appear for a hearing of the case in November last year and a warrant was granted for his arrest.
He had gone to London from Edinburgh and fiscal Roderick Urquhart said: “It was recognised that he was a particularly vulnerable young man and the initial search was very much a missing person inquiry rather than simply one of an absconding accused.”
Mr Fitzpatrick told Sheriff Margaret Neilson: “When he returned from London he had developed a skin condition and his physical health was a cause for concern.”
Mr Fitzpatrick added that there was also a report from his GP “which raised concern about not just his physical health but his mental well being and that he could be suffering from an undiagnosed mental condition.”
Sheriff Neilson also ordered Brown to remain under social work supervision for two years and placed him on the sex offenders register for that period.
