A 57-year old man, who downloaded almost half a million indecent still pictures and videos of children being sexually abused – one of the largest collections uncovered in Scotland – has been given a five year extended sentence with three years in custody, followed by two years under licence.
Martin Blyth of Ardconnel Terrace, Oban, had pled guilty previously at Edinburgh Sheriff Court to being in possession of the porn between December 13, 2010, and May 18 last year, while living in Howdenhall Court in Edinburgh.
The number of still images totalled 488,372, with 4724 at Category A, the highest level; and 1241 videos, with 264 at the highest level.
It took the officers, who were grading the items, three months and they described the collection as “sickening”. It included children from the age of five years old being raped by adults, forced to perform sexual acts with animals and being tied up and abused.
Sentence had been deferred until today (May 3) for a Social Work report. Blyth, a married man with no children, had no previous convictions.
Sheriff Paul Arthurson QC told Blyth that his level of planning in amassing his collection had been dedicated and substantial.
“You have described getting up early,while your wife slept, to download images and racing home from your employment to do the same”.
“Your compulsion to view deviant material, involving the appalling and degrading sexual abuse of children over such a long period led you to amass this collection on what can only be described as an industrial scale”.
The Sheriff added: “Consumers of this obnoxious and depraved material create a market for those who produce these images leading to very real sexual abuse, as depicted in your collection of images of thousands of real children across the world in unimaginably horrific ways, causing incalculable and long lasting harm to these child victims”.
Defence solicitor, Stephen Mannifield, said his client had been working with the “Stop it Now” organisation since May last year and accepted that a custodial sentence was inevitable. Blyth, he added, was willing to engage with whatever courses were available whilst in custody.
The Social Work report, said the lawyer, stated that Blyth had “a pre-occupation with obtaining the images”.
However, he said, Blyth had not shared or distributed the images or made contact with any children.
Sheriff Arthurson told Blyth the Social Work report stated he represented a high risk of causing serious harm and it was necessary to protect the public.
He sentenced him to three years in custody and a further two years under supervision on licence, the conditions of which would be fixed by the Scottish Ministers. He also placed him on the Sex Offenders Register for an indefinite period.
