The managing director of a world-renowned tartan weaving mill has walked free from court after a jury cleared him of possessing horrific images of child sex abuse, sadistic torture and bestiality.
Dr Nicholas Fiddes was alleged to have downloaded more than 40,000 images and videos of children being raped and adults sexually engaging with animals including dogs, snakes and a chimpanzee.
The businessman, of Morningside, Edinburgh, was also facing charges of owning depraved footage depicting women being sexually mutilated and tortured.
Fiddes - owner of Borders-based artisan tartan mill D.C Dalgliesh Ltd - denied he was responsible and instead blamed his wife and business partner Dr Adele Telford for collecting the shocking material in the early years of their marriage.
Fiddes, 61, stood trial over five days at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last week and left the dock in tears on Monday after a jury delivered majority not guilty verdicts on all the three charges.
Dr Telford, 48, told the court she discovered a folder full of computer discs as she packed up her belongings while preparing to leave her husband in February 2019.
She broke down in the dock several times as she told the court of the “gut-wrenching” moment she realised what was contained on the computer discs she claimed she found in her husband’s office.
She said she then spent several hours in “shock and fright” going through the discs as she was concerned there may be images of her own children within the vast collection of “highly categorised” images.
Dr Telford said the horrifying discovery left her with “a facial involuntary twitch” and she called the police the following day to report what she had found.
But Fiddes denied any guilt and told the jury it was his wife who had downloaded the child abuse images after he had told her about historic child abuse within his own family.
He said she then began showing him the disgusting images over the next few weeks as a test after becoming concerned he might be attracted to children.
Fiddes said his wife then promised to “destroy” all the material after she had believed he was not attracted to minors and the couple had decided to have their own children.
DC Gavin Templeton, a digital forensic analyst with Police Scotland, told the court he found tens of thousands of images on several devices confiscated from Fiddes’ home during a police raid on the property in February 2019.
He said the material contained images and videos of children being raped, adult women being tortured and extreme images showing adults engaging in sexual activity with an array of animals.
The officer said the material, which also contained images of necrophilia, had been downloaded to the devices between July 1995 and July 2018.
DC Templeton added the extreme images were “particularly disturbing” and in his ten years experience in cyber-crime they were “some of the worst I have ever seen”.
The court was told police found a total of 41,488 indecent images and 165 videos of child abuse with many classified as Category A - the most extreme end of the spectrum.
The officers also discovered 1844 images and 48 videos of extreme pornography including bestiality and sadistic torture.
Fiddes was found not guilty by majority decision of two charges of possessing, and taking, images of child sex abuse at his home between March 2001 and February 2019.
He was also cleared of possessing extreme pornographic images between March 2011 and February 2019.
