A Perthshire roofer was caught with a hidden cache of child abuse videos in which victims were as young as four years old.

Liam Thornber was placed on the Sex Offenders Register when he appeared at Perth Sheriff Court and admitted having obscene files stored on his phone over a 10-week period.

The 21-year-old, who has a history of driving convictions, accessed the images and clips from a messenger app called Kik.

The court that many of the videos were of the most graphic kind.

Police raid following tip-off

Fiscal depute Andrew Harding told the court: “The accused was 20 years old at the time of the offence.

“He was a self-employed roofer but is now unemployed.”

Mr Harding said: “On March 1 2022, Police Scotland received intelligence that indecent images of children were being held within the accused’s home in Comrie.

“A warrant was sought and at 8.30am on March 20, police attended at the address.”

Thornber answered the door and let the investigators inside.

“Officers explained the reason for their attendance and a black mobile phone was seized from the accused.

“The device was forensically analysed and officers found a Kik messenger application that had been used to access group chats containing indecent images of children.”

The prosecutor said all the illicit files came from the Kik app.

Cybercrime specialists uncovered 20 videos with a run time of just over 18 minutes.

The majority were of the most obscene category A, Mr Harding said.

They featured boys and girls as young as five.

A further 19 photos were uncovered, mostly of youngsters from four to 12 years old “posing erotically”.

Must register with police

Solicitor David Holmes, defending, suggested the court would defer sentence for background reports.

“I don’t propose to say anything further at this stage,” he said.

“But I would invited the court to continue bail.”

Sheriff Jennifer Bain KC told Thornber: “The offence for which you have been convicted is one that attracts the notification provisions of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

“This means you must register your name and address with the police, so that you can be added to the Sex Offenders Register.

“If you fail to do so, or fail to keep your details up to date, you will be committing an offence.”

Twice banned

In 2022, Thornber was disqualified from driving after taking his works van for a drunken joyride and crashing it into a private garden.

He was more than three times the limit when he careered into the property off Crieff‘s Kincardine Road, causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage.

At the time, he was already disqualified for an earlier incident when he led police on a high speed chase.

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