A Scots dad has dodged a prison sentence after trying to pin the blame on his dead son for a stash of child porn he kept for over a decade.
A sheriff told international charity worker Ewan McLeod that he had reached the "custodial threshold" but was being allowed to narrowly avoid a jail term.
Information technology business owner McLeod was found guilty by a jury of downloading child porn for more than a decade, despite claiming his tragic son was to blame.
The jury at Perth Sheriff Court rejected McLeod's claim that his tragic son Douglas had been the one searching for and keeping the illicit haul of sexual abuse images.
Perth Sheriff Court was told that images were found on computer equipment within the family home after police received information that someone had been accessing illegal material.
The court was told that a device containing child porn was found in the room that had been used by McLeod's musician son prior to him dying in his late 20s.
McLeod denied being responsible for the stash of images and told the jury the only person who could have been to blame was his late son.
The court heard McLeod deny that he was a computer expert who would have been able to hide the images or delete any trace of them.
However, he admitted working in IT and that he had been able to put the computer at the centre of the case together from parts salvaged from other devices.
McLeod, 67, of Main Street in Glenfarg, was found guilty of downloading child porn at his home between 2 March 2007 and 2 December 2017.
Sheriff William Wood told McLeod: "The jury that heard your trial were satisfied of your guilt on the basis of the evidence they heard.
"I have to take into account your previous good character and to balance that against the apparent duration of your offending, which was for a period of over ten years."
The court was told McLeod was found with nearly 5,000 images and videos when his home was raided by police acting on intelligence information.
Solicitor David Holmes, defending, said: "He is not someone who has been involved in any analogous offending behaviour in the past. He has nothing outstanding.
"He has carried out charity work in this country and beyond. He continues to maintain his innocence in this case."
Sheriff Wood placed McLeod on the sex offenders register and under supervision for two years and ordered him to carry out 250 hours unpaid work. He was also made the subject of a conduct requirement limiting his internet use.
