A man who gave a thumbs-up emoji after receiving a sick image of a child in a WhatsApp group has been spared jail.
Sergio Costa, 41, had a number of vile images featuring children as young as three on his devices, Inverness Sheriff Court was told.
Costa appeared for sentencing having previously admitted a single charge of taking, permitting to be taken or making indecent images of children between January 23 and August 7 2020.
Fiscal depute Robert Weir told the court that last August police had received intelligence that credentials linked to the accused had been used to upload indecent images of children to the internet.
A search warrant was granted for Costa’s Dufftown home and when it was executed he answered the door and let officers into the property.
Police officers denied PIN
A Samsung Galaxy 7 mobile phone was handed over, but a second mobile, a Samsung Galaxy 9, was found during the search. Costa refused to provide an access PIN for this device.
“Cybercrime attended at the locus and provided a preliminary examination of the Samsung Galaxy S9, managing to bypass the security on the handset,” Mr Weir said.
“The Samsung Galaxy S9 was attributed to the accused and was found to contain 15 indecent images of children ranging from category A through to C.”
Further investigation of the devices found more indecent images featuring boys and girls aged between three and 13 as well as two videos featuring girls aged between 10 and 14.
A number of the images were saved in locations associated with the messaging service WhatsApp, including in chat logs.
Mr Weir told the court: “It appeared the accused – user Costa – had not shared any of these images.
“These chat logs showed evidence of other WhatsApp users sharing indecent images of children.
“The accused did respond to one of those with a thumbs-up image.”
Solicitor Matthew O’Neill for Costa said his client had lost his employment as a taxi driver as a result of the conviction and was struggling with his mental health.
Group chat had 200 members
He said the group had been one where users shared pornographic images most of which were considered legal.
“Mr Costa had signed up to a WhatsApp chat group. The group involved approximately 200 individuals,” Mr O’Neill said.
“The group had been to share websites and pictures of a pornographic nature. The vast majority of a sort that would be deemed to be legal.”
He said Costa had opened images sent to him and, on realising the nature of them, had taken steps to delete them, but they had remained on his devices nonetheless.
Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald told Costa, of Hillside Avenue, Dufftown: “You will bear the consequences of this conviction probably for the rest of your life.”
She placed him on a community payback order with three years of supervision and a requirement to participate in the Moving Forward Making Changes programme for sexual offenders for the same amount of time.
She also ordered him to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work in the community and placed him on the sex offenders register for three years.
