A former dentist who sent indecent images to his lawyer claiming he wanted to expose a paedophile chat room has walked free from court.
Harry Robertson, 59, from Glasgow was out on licence from another child abuse image conviction at the time.
The convicted sex offender also sent the the two indecent images of young boys to a friend.
Robertson was struck from the dental register in 2014 for hiding his HIV diagnosis and then was snared in 2017 with 215 still and moving indecent images of children.
Robertson, who worked as a dentist in Paisley and Dumfries, pled guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to possession and creating indecent images of children from his home in the city's Kelvindale.
He also admitted distributing or showing indecent photographs of children.
Sheriff Ian Fleming placed Robertson on a two year community payback order which includes 180 hours of unpaid work.
He was also put on the sex offenders register for two years.
A previous hearing was told a staff member at the Criminal Justice Social Work department received a call from Robertson in July last year
Prosecutor Mhairi Alexander said: "He informed her he did something stupid at the weekend and wanted to keep himself right by letting the authorities know."
Robertson told the staff member he was on a chat forum where indecent images of children were shared.
He added that he had taken and sent two screenshots to his lawyer "as he believed he had stumbled on something big."
The information was forwarded to the Offender Management Unit, who was overseeing Robertson's release.
Police searched Robertson's house and seized an iPhone.
Miss Alexander said: "He stated he was hallucinating whilst taking cocaine at the time in question."
Robertson admitted taking the screenshots to "alert the authorities" about the chatroom.
He also told officers that he had sent the screenshots to his "solicitor and a friend."
A search of the phone found two images - one in the highest category A and the other in category B.
The children in the images were of boys aged between eight and 12-years-old.
Robertson's chat logs on Whatsapp proved he sent the screenshots to his lawyer and another man.
Miss Alexander said: "Robertson stated to his lawyer he believed he has uncovered illegal activity regarding paedophiles.”
Dale Hughes, defending, told the court Robertson’s actions were a “misconceived adventure.”
