A north-east man who handed his iPad to police because he was the victim of online extortion was later found to have dozens of indecent child images on his device.
Kenneth Hay, 60, contacted officers to inform them that he was being extorted by someone he had been chatting with online.
But when he provided his iPad for examination, cybercrime officers found a hoard of child sex images.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard that Hay had also typed in a number of search terms relating to child abuse imagery.
A further search of his home uncovered a laptop that also contained over 100 indecent images of children dating back 10 years.
Accused typed vile sex terms into browser
Fiscal depute Christy Ward told the court that on January 20 last year Hay had contacted police to report that he was the victim of extortion by an unknown person he had been communicating with online.
“He provided a statement and also voluntarily provided his iPad to police for examination to assist in identifying the suspect,” Ms Ward said.
However, following an examination of Hay’s iPad police investigators found the device contained four indecent images of children.
Officers further noted that Hay had used a Safari web browser to type in the search terms, including ‘pedosex’ and ‘teen rape sex tube’.
A warrant was granted and police then searched Hay’s home, where they found a black laptop that contained 128 indecent images of children.
Ms Ward told the court that 43 of the images were found in a temporary internet file marked with the ‘Dad’ username.
In total 10 Category A images, 27 Category B images and 95 Category C images were found on each device.
The earliest creation date for an image was June 2011.
Hay pleaded guilty to one charge of downloading indecent images of children between June 19 2011 and January 20 last year.
‘He is absolutely aware of the seriousness of the situation’
Defence agent Kevin Longino told the court that Hay’s position was that “this was very limited behaviour on his part”.
He added: “That does not in any way detract from the offences that he is facing today.
“He is absolutely aware of the seriousness of the situation in which he finds himself.”
Sheriff Ian Wallace told Hay that he considered this a “very serious offence” and one where the court does consider a prison sentence.
“However, I have considered the circumstances in this case and I believe I can deal with this without imposing a custodial sentence.
“It was a relatively small amount of images, but that does not detract from the seriousness of this offence.”
As an alternative to a prison sentence, Sheriff Wallace sentenced Hay to a community payback order with supervision for three years and ordered him to carry out 225 hours of unpaid work.
He also placed Hay, of School Road, Fettercairn, on the sex offenders’ register for three years.
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