An Arbroath paedophile who extorted nude images from his own daughter has been jailed.
The 36-year-old factory worker threatened her using an anonymous Instagram account.
He told her he would “hurt” her family if she did not send pictures of her breasts to him.
Police later found hundreds of child sexual abuse images featuring other youngsters on his phone.
He wept in the dock at Dundee Sheriff Court as he was sentenced to 22 and a half months in prison.
He was placed on the Sex Offenders Register for a decade.
‘Abuse of trust’
The man cannot be named to protect the identity of his daughter.
She had complied with his demands, fearing someone would hurt her family and completely unaware it was her father making the threats.
Sentence had previously been deferred for background reports.
Sheriff Jillian Martin-Brown said: “I have taken into account what has been said on your behalf and what has been written in the report.
“I have also taken into account your limited criminal record.
“However, I have to balance that against the gravity of the charges.
“There was an abuse of trust.”
Police acted on tip-off
At an earlier hearing, Depute fiscal Lynne Mannion said police were tipped off about the images on January 26 2022 and visited the Arbroath family home on February 3 with a search warrant.
The man was already on his way to work and detectives caught up with him and recovered his iPhone.
Ms Mannion said 11 category A to C child abuse images were recovered, of girls aged 6 to 12 and he was arrested.
The phone was further examined and images of the man’s daughter were recovered.
The court heard he had contacted her on Instagram demanding “t**s” and sent her a second message saying he would “hurt her family” if she did not comply.
‘Trying to catch out daughter’ excuse
Facebook messages between the accused and his partner were also uncovered.
He told her he had asked for images of his daughter “in a moment of madness” and insisted it was not for “any kind of sexual attraction”.
He claimed to police he had become aware of his daughter sending pictures to other people on social media and wanted to check if it was true.
Ms Mannion said: “He admitted being responsible and said he was trying to catch her out sending naked images.”
She said he told police: “It was a stupid moment of madness.
“She was sending pictures to random people. I want to make it clear it was not for sexual attraction or anything like that.”
However, a deeper probe of the phone by forensic officers uncovered a cache of 664 child sex abuse images, of all categories including the most serious kind.
The accused admitted possessing indecent images of children, extreme pornographic images involving animals and extorting his daughter between March 2020 and February 2022 at his home address in Arbroath.
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