A former taxi driver caught distributing child porn has been placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years.
Paul McDonald, 48, from Ayr, escaped a jail sentence when he appeared at Ayr Sheriff Courton Thursday for distributing indecent photos of kids on November 8, 2020.
He was also found to be in possession of indecent images of children on various occasions between January 2015 and November 2020.
Foul images depicted kids as young as five-years-old.
McDonald, of Elba Street, Ayr, admitted his guilt at a previous hearing where the court heard two devices — a black iPhone and a silver computer tower — were found to contain 1284 indecent images of children.
Of those 1284 images, 727 were within category A — the most severe; 415 were coded as category B, and 142 as category C.
On the distribution charge, the court previously heard McDonald shared four links to three Mega folders (a cloud storage service) and one to Drop Box with the links containing images of young teens, across the three categories A, B and C.
His solicitor, Ms Gravelle, moved for a community based disposal given that McDonald was set to start a new job, moving commercial vehicles, and asked the court to impose a rehabilitation element to any order imposed.
“Be that supervision, unpaid work or engaging in Moving Forward Making Changes programme,” she said.
“Mr McDonald will comply with a restriction of liberty order.
“Mr McDonald has accepted ownership of the devices from the outset.
“He’s expressed remorse and regret to myself.
“Mr McDonald will engage with any order.”
Sheriff Foran said to McDonald: “I’m sure you would have been warned, particularly in respect of distribution, this is a matter where custody has to be considered.”
Sheriff Foran said she was inclined to step back from a period of imprisonment due to McDonald’s expressed remorse, limited record, and his need for supervision, which was less likely to be achieved in custody.
McDonald was placed on a community payback order of three years supervision with a requirement to attend the Moving Forward Making Changes programme, an intensive treatment programme for sex offenders.
His liberty was restricted for four months, where he must remain at his home address from 8pm to 7am every day.
McDonald was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years and ordered not to have any contact with a child under 16.
And he was told not to delete his internet history, or download any software which could achieve this, and must provide supervising officers with passwords to any devices.
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