A Fife police officer’s promising career is in tatters after admitting accessing indecent images of children on his desktop computer.
Robbie Conacher, 36, pled guilty to accessing photos or pseudo-photos of children at his home in Regent Street, Kincardine, on various occasions between July 13, 2019, and November 1, 2019.
Three of the images found on his computer were deemed to be in the most serious category on the scale, amid dozens of offending images discovered.
Conacher, now living in Newhouse, Stirling, has since tendered his resignation from the force and faces sentencing for his crimes next month.
Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard how Police Scotland had received information that the internet connection at Conacher’s home address had been used to access indecent images of children.
Officers initially knocked on his door at 7.30am on December 19 but found no-one at home, although he was later traced at his girlfriend’s address.
Fiscal Ronnie Hay revealed subsequent searches of his computer were conducted and discovered a number of images, including three unique category-A images.
Among the other images found were an unspecified number in category B and 26 deemed to be in category C.
Conacher’s defence solicitor Nicholas Carroll confirmed his client had been a serving police officer at the time of the offence but stressed the offending behaviour had been committed when he was off-duty.
His client resigned from the force when the allegations against him came to light, the solicitor added.
Mr Carroll went on to explain how Conacher had began using pornography to a “significant extent” in around May or June last year, sometimes for “several hours at a time”, and had accepted deliberately opening and viewing files containing indecent images of children on July 13, July 26, August 10, August 21 and November 1 last year.
However, Mr Carroll said his client did not keep the images and said they were not readily accessible on his desktop computer.
Conacher is said to have taken part in a charity’s eight-week programme to address his offending his behaviour and had also attended his GP.
Sheriff Jamie Gilchrist QC deferred sentence on Conacher for the preparation of reports and continued his bail.
Conacher was also told that, as a result of his conviction, he would be placed on the sex offenders’ register.
