A disgraced Perth scientist caught with an illicit stash of child abuse material used a new name without telling police, a court has heard.
Connor Sword was arrested in 2019 after police unearthed hundreds of obscene files on his home computer.
Investigators found he had been making Google searches specifically for sexual material involving children.
Sword was originally sentenced to 200 hours of unpaid work and a two-year supervision order after he admitted downloading the graphic images over an eight week period.
He was re-sentenced in 2022 after social workers said the order was proving “unworkable”.
Sword, who has autism and anxiety, was instead fined £1,200.
The 30-year-old, of Lethendy, Meikleour, this week returned to the dock and admitted breaching the terms of his sexual offences notification requirements.
Perth Sheriff Court heard that between March 1 2023 and March 31 this year, he failed to notify police within three days of an address in Falkirk he had been staying at for a period of more than seven days.
He also admitted he did not tell police he was using the name Connor Anderson.
New order
The hearing before Sheriff William Gilchrist was closed to the public.
Solicitor Jamie Baxter, defending, said his client had physically collapsed in the dock at an earlier hearing and there were difficulties removing him from the court.
“Today, he seems much better,” he said.
The court heard Sword, who previously received a £15,000-a-year stipend from Napier University to work on his PHD, was no longer receiving an income.
Sheriff Gilchrist placed him on supervision for two years.
“You have to comply with this order, otherwise you will be brought back to court,” he told him.
Incriminating Google searches
The court heard officers raided Sword’s home in July 2019 and recovered several devices.
They found a total of 300 indecent images, including several at the most graphic end of the obscenity scale.
Fiscal depute Marie Irvine said at the time: “Activity showed Google search terms which suggested the creation of said images was not by accident.
“He stated he had purchased the device on eBay in 2018.
“His position was that he did not knowingly download indecent images of children, that he downloads numerous files and that indecent images of children may have been downloaded amongst other files.”
At the time of the police raid, Sword was working on a short-term contract at Ninewells Hospital.
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