A Fife computing student is facing jail after he was caught with nearly 6,000 indecent images of babies and children on his laptop, which he was distributing around the web.
Shaun Butler (23) was a member of a file-sharing website where users uploaded and shared thousands of images of children being abused.
A police operation found Butler on the website, under his user name Tonicknight, and undercover officers went on to befriend him online.
Police then raided his house in St Andrews, where he lived with his parents and sister, and seized his laptop, which had 5,790 images of children. Of these 131 were the most serious level of child abuse. Some of the images showed babies being abused.
Butler, who admitted that his own tastes were for boys aged 10 to 15, appeared at Cupar Sheriff Court and was warned that his chance of avoiding prison was “very, very remote”.
The court heard that police first became aware of his activity on the file-sharing site in February last year.
Prosecuting, Dev Kapadia said Fife police investigated activity on the site after becoming aware someone in the region was distributing indecent images of children.
The depute fiscal said: “The officers used covert profiles to engage with the current members and become friends with them online with a view to obtaining evidence and thereafter tracking users.
“The username Tonicknight was a prolific user of the internet and a member of the file-sharing site and involved in indecent image sharing.”
Mr Kapadia told the court that police tracked Butler to St Andrews via his IP address and searched his house on March 28 last year, taking his laptop.
The court heard that it was examined and the images were found. Of the images 3,157 were level one, 493 were level two, 930 at level three, 1,079 at level four and 131 at level five. There were also 410 videos on the laptop, of which 231 were level four and 24 were level five.
Mr Kapadia said: “The images were involving children from month old babies to 15 year olds.”
Butler, of Sandy Herd Court, St Andrews, pled guilty to three charges that between July 15 2010 and January 1 2012, at his home, he did take or permit to be taken indecent photos or pseudo photos of children, that he had the photos in his possession with a view for them to be distributed or shown to others, and that he did distribute them.
Jacqueline Meisel, defending, said Butler was studying for an HNC in games development at Dundee College.
“He spends a lot of time on the internet and he has an interest in computers. He is aware of the seriousness of the situation and he is remorseful,” she said.
“He advises that when he is downloading files from other users he would often download a folder which contained a number of images, sometimes up to 100, and he is not able to see the content of images until the folder is downloaded.
“He is now aware of the impact this has on the victims but it wasn’t something at the forefront of his mind at the time. His own preference was for boys aged 10 to 15 and that’s what he would be looking for”.
Sheriff Charles MacNair deferred sentence for a criminal justice social work report, placed Butler on the sex offenders register and warned him he faces jail.
He said: “Having regard to the nature of this offence, in particular the distribution case, you must be left under no illusion when you come back the prospect of a non-custodial sentence is very, very remote.”
Butler will be sentenced next month.