A serial sex offender has been jailed after he was caught downloading indecent images of children for the third time.
Daniel McGladrigan, 23, was placed on the sex offenders register and banned from using the internet after being caught with hundreds of pictures of children and hours of video footage on his devices in 2021.
In April 2023, he was warned by a sheriff when caught with indecent images for the second time that he had only avoided prison due to his young age.
But when police raided McGladrigan’s home in November they found he had built himself a computer and downloaded nearly 900 indecent images of children only months afterwards.
Accused built himself a PC
Fiscal depute Rebecca Thompson told Aberdeen Sheriff Court that information was received by police from the National Child Abuse Investigation Unit that McGladrigan was using a device that was connected to the internet and was being used to download child abuse images.
On the morning of December 13 last year police officers executed a search warrant at McGladrigan’s home address.
“A search of the locus was conducted where constables seized a Google phone in a black case and a self-built gaming PC,” Ms Thompson told the court.
“The accused advised that both the Google phone and the self-built gaming PC belonged to him.
“He provided the passwords and PINs for these devices to the constables.
“These devices were subject to interim examinations which revealed child sex abuse material.”
During a police interview, McGladrigan admitted he had downloaded an updated version of the Windows operating system to the PC – but denied he did this in order to conceal data or activity.
It was discovered that McGladrigan had downloaded a number of internet browsers, including Tor, which allowed him to access the dark web.
It was also found that data had been deleted or lost from the device.
Hundreds of child images found on Daniel McGladrigan’s devices
An examination of McGladrigan’s Google phone found he was in possession of 56 Category A images of children.
Around 93 Category B images and 732 Category C images were also found in that device.
The children featured were girls estimated to be between two and 10 years of age.
It was discovered that the earliest file creation date was June 30 2023 – less than three months after his last court appearance – and the last was December 2023.
Appearing in the dock, McGladrigan pleaded guilty to one count of accessing the internet while being subject to a sexual offences prevention order.
He also admitted a second charge of having indecent images of children.
‘Just couldn’t help himself’
His solicitor, Stuart Beveridge, told the court that the “difficulty” his client now faced was that he had been caught with child images on three occasions over three years.
“Mr McGladrigan is under no illusions as to what is going to happen,” Mr Beveridge said.
“He recognises that he has an ongoing issue with images, and he knows that it was inevitable that he would be caught – he just couldn’t help himself.
“There is a pattern of him looking a them and then deleting them – it’s something he has to deal with.”
Sheriff Graham Buchanan told McGladrigan: “I think you probably recognise that the court’s options here are limited today and that’s because of your two previous convictions.”
He added that “to make matters worse” McGladrigan was subject to a sexual offences prevention order at the time and he had “tried to disguise” what he was doing online.
Sheriff Buchanan sentenced McGladrigan, whose address was given as HMP Grampian, to a total of 13 months in prison, backdated to December 14 last year.
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