A twisted laundry owner with an interest in collecting extreme animal abuse claimed he had downloaded nearly 10,000 indecent images of children “by accident”.
Paedophile businessman Scott Henderson was caught with the vile haul of images and videos at his store and at his home overlooking a primary school.
When police raided his home acting on a tip-off, Henderson admitted he was interested in extreme images of animals having sex with people.
He told the officers that if they found any indecent child images they must have been downloaded by accident.
A forensic search of the computer equipment at his home and his office laptop subsequently saw specialist officers recover 9,280 images and 48 videos of the most graphic child abuse.
The videos had a playing time of several hours and Perth Sheriff Court was told the images featured young children being sexually abused.
Fiscal depute John Malpass told the court: “He lives alone in Abbot Street and is the owner and operator of a laundry business in the same street.
“Information was received by police that a device linked to the accused’s home address was involved in the distribution of indecent images of children.
“A warrant was obtained and during a search of the house various items of computer equipment were seized. A laptop was also recovered from his business premises.
“He stated the devices were his and no-one else had access to them. He admitted he viewed all sorts of pornographic material.
“He said he used all sorts of adult pornography. He said any images of children had been accidentally downloaded and he had not got round to deleting them.
“The images were of female and male children of all ages up to 16.”
The prosecutor told the court that Henderson was also found with a further 1,511 videos and images of children which were “concerning” but did not count as indecent.
Henderson, 38, Abbot Street in Perth, admitted making indecent images of children between November 12 2013 and July 21 2016.
He also admitted having extreme animal abuse images between August 2014 and August 2016.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis placed Henderson on the sex offenders’ register and deferred sentence for the preparation of social work reports and a psychological assessment.
Henderson was granted bail.
