An 84-year-old Elgin man who downloaded almost 500 indecent images of children – mostly girls aged between one and 14 – was spared jail today.
Inverness Sheriff Court was told that Donald Eddowes was depressed at the time after a divorce from his second wife in 2005.
His family had also moved on and defence solicitor Stephen Carty said that his client had difficulty coping.
The court heard previously when Eddowes admitted possessing the illegal images that police received intelligence about his illegal online activity.
Officers raided his home in Birnie, Elgin on December 10 last year.
Fiscal depute Pauline Gair said that two computers were removed from his house.
Mrs Gair added that the images were mostly of girls aged between one and 14.
Analysis of the hard drives discovered 461 in total, with 24 of them being in the most obscene category.
Appearing for sentence before Sheriff Gary Aitken, Eddowes was told that his was not a victimless crime.
“There is an enormous amount of harm done to children to enable people to sit at their computers to view these images.
“Some have the bizarre idea that only looking at these images is not that bad. But they are a result of real brutalisation of real children and that is really bad.”
Sheriff Aitken decided against jailing Eddowes after reading a background report. Instead he placed him under social work supervision for two years and on the Sex Offender’s Register for the same period.
He was also ordered to participate in a sex offender’s programme.
Mr Eddowes got a stern warning that despite his age, he could still go to jail if he did not comply fully with the order.
