A pervert snared with over 103,000 indecent images of children after a police operation walked free from court today.
Mark Steven was caught with the sick images on various electronic devices between January 2018 and May 2019.
The 44-year-old was able to delete some of the images before a police raid on his home.
But, a forensic search by officers recovered the files.
The first offender pled guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to possession of indecent photographs of children.
Sheriff Andrew Cubie called the offences “serious” and imposed a three-year community payback order which includes supervision over Steven’s device and internet usage.
Steven is also banned from communicating with anyone under 16 and was restricted to adult only leisure facilities.
The court heard a warrant was granted to search Steven’s home as part of Police Scotland’s Operation NOCAP.
Officers seized a number of laptops, memory sticks and USBs from the house in Glasgow’s Oatlands area.
Stevens was arrested and the devices were sent to be forensically analysed.
Prosecutor Lucy Adams said: “The devices were found to contain still and indecent images of child abuse.”
Miss Adams told the court that there were six category B images and 103,127 in category C.
She added: “The vast majority of these images had been deleted and were unavailable to Steven.
“On the Samsung tablet 19,503 were accessible and there was one on the Dell laptop.”
None of the category B images were accessible and the victims were aged between eight and 14-years-old.
Moira Grant, defending, said: “Clearly the offences are serious.
“There are many issues in his life and some can be related to the commission of these offences.
“He is 44 years old and had never been in trouble in his life.”
