Moray cop Kyle MacKinnon cleared of sending naked images of himself to domestic abuse victim
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A Moray policeman has been found not guilty of sending sexually explicit pictures of himself to a domestic abuse victim.
Kyle MacKinnon was cleared of the accusation today at Elgin Sheriff Court.
However, Sheriff David Harvie stated he had believed "very little" of the evidence given by the 38-year-old policeman.
By contrast, he referred to the woman as a "credible witness", but pointed to failures during the police investigation which had undermined the prosecution's case.
PC MacKinnon has been suspended from duty since the allegations came to light in 2019.
His trial has been held over three days since February, being postponed on a fourth day after the defendant became unwell in the dock.
It revolved around the question of whether it could be proved that it was definitely him who sent the images.
A large part of the proceedings concentrated on technical questions surrounding the workings of the social media platforms Snapchat and WhatsApp.
PC MacKinnon went to the woman's home in Keith on November 27, 2018, following a domestic assault incident.
She alleged that he began contacting her on social media the following day.
Images sent on Snapchat automatically delete themselves after a few seconds.
The woman therefore claimed to have taken screenshots before they disappeared.
She contacted the anti-corruption unit on April 16, 2019, and was interviewed in Keith the same day.
A search warrant was subsequently executed at PC MacKinnon's home on May 6, and his mobile phone taken away to be examined.
Explicit photos of PC MacKinnon found on the device were similar to the screenshots shown to the police by the woman.
However, rather than take away the woman's mobile for forensic examination, a memory card was used instead to make copies of the screenshots.
The reasoning was that, as a domestic abuse victim and the mother of young children, she had need of her phone.
However the result was that, in the eyes of the sheriff, the electronic data was no longer available to state beyond reasonable doubt that the images had definitely been sent by the defendant.
Giving evidence, PC MacKinnon denied ever having sent images of himself to the domestic abuse victim.
Instead, he claimed to have sent them to another woman he was having an extra-marital affair with.
Asked by procurator fiscal Sharon Ralph how the domestic abuse victim had managed to get a copy of a naked photo, he replied: "I don't know. Once you have sent an image, you lose control of it."
PC MacKinnon's defence lawyer, Mark Stewart KC, suggested that the images could have been either sent by or obtained from a third party.
Delivering his not guilty verdict, Sheriff Harvie told PC MacKinnon: "I believe very little of what you have said.
"The photographs are very similar but the test that I have to apply is one of beyond reasonable doubt, not balance of probabilities."
Sheriff Harvie also recalled evidence given by a police colleague that PC MacKinnon, in referring to the domestic abuse victim, had stated he "would like to have a go at her".
This, the sheriff commented, "caused concern" about the culture in the force.
PC MacKinnon was cleared of repeatedly sending the woman photographs of a sexual and indecent nature.
He was also cleared of sending her sexual messages without her consent.
A third charge that he tried to kiss her in Keith Police Station was dropped during the course of the trial.
