A Perthshire joiner was caught with a hidden haul of obscene child abuse images featuring victims as young as two years old.
Police swooped on Christopher Blair’s home in Errol following an anonymous tip-off.
They uncovered dozens of illicit files on his iPhone and iPad – more than half were described by prosecutors as being at the most obscene level.
Blair, 31, appeared at Perth Sheriff Court and admitted possessing and taking or permitting indecent photos of children between January 23 2017 and November 24 2021.
He was placed on the Sex Offenders Register and will be sentenced next month.
Police raid
Fiscal depute Joanne Ritchie told the court that police received confidential information that indecent images of children were being downloaded to a device at Blair’s home in Norlands.
Officers descended on the house, armed with a search warrant, just before 9am on November 24, 2021.
“The accused’s partner answered the door,” said Ms Ritchie.
“It was established that the accused was out at work.”
Detectives went to Blair’s workplace and told him to return home.
He handed over his iPhone to officers.
Once at his house, Blair told police: “There are images on my phone. Videos.”
An iPad was recovered from the kitchen, the court heard.
“A cybercrime officer attended at the locus and began to preview both devices,” said Ms Ritchie.
“The initial examination of the iPhone showed approximately seven videos portraying child sexual exploitation material.”
The court heard that the two Apple devices were synced and some of the same files appeared on each device.
Downloaded from Snapchat
Police recovered 72 files – 16 videos and 56 still images – on the iPhone “depicting child exploitation and abuse.”
Ms Ritchie said 44 of these were at Category A, the most obscene.
“The files showed children between approximately two to 14 years of age engaged in sexual activity with themselves and adults,” the prosecutor said. “There were also images of sexualised posing.”
The total running time of the videos was two hours and 12 minutes.
Ms Ritchie said: “The majority of accessible material is shown to have been created in 2021.
“Inaccessible files date from January 2017 and August 2019. This pre-dates the device model which was released in 2020, indicating the files were taken from previous devices via either iTunes of iCloud back-up.”
She added: “Several videos were stored within the Snapchat album, suggesting this was the method of acquisition.”
Ms Ritchie said a further 23 unique images were found on the iPad, of which 10 were at Category A.
Deferred for reports
Solicitor Pauline Cullerton, defending, asked the court to continue bail while sentence was deferred for reports.
“He has no previous convictions,” she said.
Sheriff William Wood told Blair: “I cannot deal with this matter today because I need to obtain Criminal Justice Social Work reports.”
Blair will be sentenced on September 7.
For the latest court cases across Tayside and Fife, join our Courts Facebook page.
