An Inverness schoolboy who downloaded child abuse images and videos for more than three years before being caught by the police has avoided jail.
Struan Nicol’s sick online activities were finally revealed by officers who raided his Inverness home on Friar’s Street.
They uncovered disturbing content – almost 90 indecent media files in total – that included a vile video featuring a six-month-old baby.
Nicol, now aged 19 years old, had started collecting the cache around the age of 14, Inverness Sheriff Court was told.
He was sentenced to 300 hours of unpaid work, had restrictions imposed on his internet usage and was put under social work supervision and placed on the sex offenders register for three years.
Admitted guilt when caught
Nicol had previously appeared before Sheriff Sara Matheson, who deferred sentencing the sex offender to allow time for a background report to be produced.
When he was last in the dock, Nicol admitted to a charge of taking, permitting to be taken or making indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of children.
He also pled guilty to downloading and uploading the troubling material between 19 November 2018 and 17 January 2022.
And he admitted to breaching a bail condition that prevented him from using websites and apps that allowed their history to be erased, by downloading and later deleting Snapchat.
Online activities traced to Struan Nicol’s address in Inverness
On December 29 2021, a tip-off to Police Scotland revealed an IP address that had been used to access child abuse material was linked with Nicol’s home address.
The intelligence suggested an online account had downloaded a video of an infant in January 2019.
Fiscal depute Susan Love told the court: “The child in the video was thought to be approximately six months old”.
The video was assessed to be Category A – the worst of its kind.
Further intelligence showed a Snapchat account with a similar user name to the one used to download the video had uploaded images of child sexual abuse material to the internet.
“Those children were thought to be approximately four to eight years old,” Ms Love explained.
Both accounts were using an IP address that was subscribed to Nicol’s home in Inverness.
Nicol tried to hide mobile phone from police
On January 17 of last year, police searched the Friars Street property.
They were let inside by Nicol, but during the search, they noticed him trying to hide a mobile phone.
It was seized along with a number of other devices, all belonging to Nicol.
A digital forensic examination revealed the presence of indecent images on the confiscated devices.
The cybercrime investigation located 70 indecent photographs and 18 videos of children on them.
Five accessible still images, seven inaccessible still images, five accessible videos and three inaccessible videos were all classed as Category A – the most severe content imaginable.
There were seven accessible Category B videos and the rest of the material was Category C.
70 indecent photographs and 18 videos of children
After he was arrested, cautioned and charged, Nicol was released on bail on the condition that he wouldn’t use any websites or apps to which their history might be deleted.
But a check on him raised suspicions and, following inquiries, Nicol was arrested on suspicion of breaching his bail conditions.
When he was questioned by officers, Nicol admitted: “I was bored and downloaded Snapchat and started chatting to randoms”.
He had later deleted the app which was no longer on his mobile at the time of the arrest.
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