A man who photographed a seven-year-old girl with her genitals exposed told police “that was rather silly of me” when they found his stash of child abuse material.
Andrew Burton was caught with a “large amount” of indecent images on various devices after police carried out a raid on his Elgin home.
One of the photos discovered was taken by Burton himself and featured a young girl.
Burton, 55, appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court to admit charges of taking, permitting to be taken or making indecent images of children and possessing indecent images of children.
He also pled guilty to causing a child under 13 to participate in a sexual activity by inducing her to pose with her underwear pulled to one side and her genitals exposed before photographing her.
‘Intelligence’ led to indecent images
Fiscal depute Pauline Gair told the court that Burton’s home was raided on March 21 last year after police received intelligence that the occupant might have indecent images of children.
She said: “A systematic search of the locus was then carried out by the police and during this search 25 devices were recovered from within the locus, of which 19 were seized including; mobile telephones, an external hard drive, a laptop and a card reader with micro SD card.
“The accused stated that those were his property and provided his passwords.”
Officers who examined the devices uncovered a number of cached picture files ranging in seriousness from category A to category C, as well as a “large amount of child sexual abuse material of all ages and categories”.
Image data revealed girl was just seven
Further investigation into the subject of one picture allowed police to identify the child involved.
Image data revealed it was likely to have been taken when the girl was just seven-years-old using the same make of mobile phone seized from Burton’s home.
Mrs Gair said: “Police informed the accused that the cybercrime preview examination of the seized devices had been positive for indecent images of children.
“At this, the accused stated: ‘Yes, that was rather silly of me.’”
Sheriff Sara Matheson deferred sentencing of Burton, of Lochhills, Elgin, until next month for the production of reports.
She placed him on the sex offenders register with immediate effect, the eventual length of registration will be determined at sentencing.
