Inverness man had 1400 images of child porn

AN Inverness man was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and was placed on the sex offenders’ register after being found with over 1400 images of child porn.

Allister Davidson (46) of Glenshiel Place previously admitted downloading indecent images of children at his home on May 9 last year.

Inverness Sheriff Court had earlier heard from depute fiscal Iain Smith that 1423 images were found on a laptop computer, pen drive, and a tower computer and images ranged from the least to the most serious.

Sentence had been deferred until today for reports and Sheriff Ian Abercrombie told Davidson that High Court guidelines indicated he could not impose a custodial sentence because there were fewer images at the "higher" end of the scale.

Solicitor Marc Dickson for Davidson told the court he was a single man who had been in continuous employment for 14 years but he felt he had to resign from his job because he did not wish to cause his employer the embarrassment of the difficulties he faced in court.

Mr Dickson said: “He was highly co-operative with police when they attended on May 9. He accepted he was responsible and does not blame anyone else and was the only person with access to the computer.”

Sentencing Davidson, who had worked at Lifescan Scotland, to 200 hours of community service, the sheriff also placed him on a supervision order and he will have to attend a joint sex offenders project programme.

He added: “This has been a difficult case because of the wholly horrific nature of the subject matter but I do accept that you have been remorseful and this is an opportunity for you to rehabilitate yourself.”