A man caught with 60 images and videos of child sexual abuse told police he used them to “bait and trap” paedophiles.
Officers raided the Glenshiel home of Jake Driver after receiving intelligence that a social media account had been sharing child abuse material from his IP address.
But when they found 60 indecent images and videos of children on his devices, Driver told the police that he only used them to gain access to paedophile groups so he could hack their accounts and lock them out.
Driver, 20, appeared before Inverness Sheriff Court to plead guilty to one charge of taking, permitting to be taken, or making indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of children.
He also admitted a second charge of possessing indecent photographs of children.
Fiscal depute Pauline Gair told the court that the investigation had been sparked by intelligence received by Police Scotland’s child abuse investigation unit.
‘I can explain that, it is not what you think’
It concerned a social media account sharing child abuse material using the IP address at Driver’s father’s home, where he had a room.
A search of the property led to the seizure of laptops and mobile phones, and a cybercrimes examination of these uncovered the material.
Mrs Gair said the indecent images were “mostly featuring girls from babies to 12 years old”.
Some of the images were deemed Category A, the most serious kind.
Driver was arrested and cautioned but told officers: “I can explain that, it is not what you think”.
When interviewed he stated that he used the indecent images to “bait and trap” paedophiles.
Mrs Gair said Driver claimed he “has them as he needed them to gain access to the paedophile groups”.
“He would then post a link in the chat log which would allow him to hack the account of the people sharing the images. Once he had hacked the accounts he had access to them and would change the login details to deny the original user access,” she said.
‘Nothing was being done’
Driver told officers that he had taken over between 100 and 150 accounts on messaging app Kik in this way.
He said he had conducted the bait and trap operation because he felt “there was a lot of child abuse images being shared on social media and nothing was being done”.
He had never used the images for any reason other than to bait paedophiles, Driver had asserted.
Solicitor Neil Wilson, for Driver, said his client had given “what he thought was a good explanation” to police.
Sheriff Sara Matheson deferred sentencing for the preparation of a criminal justice social work report.
She also made Driver, of Macinnes Place, Glenshiel, subject to the notification requirements of the sex offenders register with immediate effect. The eventual length of registration will be determined at sentencing.
