An Angus police sergeant with a deleted child abuse image on his phone has been cleared of criminality after a trial.
Colin Cunningham, 51, was accused of taking or making an indecent image of a child.
Forfar Sheriff Court heard the image of a girl aged between 12 and 14 “with masturbation involved” had been deleted from Cunningham’s Samsung Galaxy phone by the time police executed a search warrant at his home.
Cunningham, who remains suspended, sat in the dock while his use of a legal pornography website was scrutinised in court.
Some of the links accessed were described as “concerning” by an investigating officer.
Cunningham denied being attracted to children and was found not guilty of the offence.
A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We are aware of the outcome in court.
“The matter will now be considered by the Professional Standards Department.”
Devices seized
The trial heard police executed a search warrant at Cunningham’s family home in Forfar on October 23 last year.
They seized a number of devices including the officer’s Samsung Galaxy mobile.
Police had to repair the phone’s data port before they carried out a forensic search and found the single illegal image, classed as category B in seriousness.
Initially, the girl in the photograph was believed to be aged between 13 and 15.
Its creation date was April 30 2023 but it had been deleted by the time officers attended Cunningham’s home.
Internet use under microscope
Cunningham’s use of pornography website Motherless was analysed in court.
It was found he had clicked on links to content on the site called “mom helping dad abusing daughter compilation,” “young girls” and “barely legal Omegle”.
Omegle is a video chat site commonly used by youngsters.
Fiscal depute Stuart Hamilton asked DC John Fraser about these.
The detective constable replied: “I don’t think you need me to say it’s concerning.”
Searches for the links had not been made on the website, which it was accepted is considered “mainstream”.
The site states all people in the content it hosts are aged 18 or over.
The court also heard from expert witness James Borwick who runs a computer forensics consultancy.
He told the court he found nothing concerning about content searched for on Cunningham’s devices and confirmed Motherless is a legal site which would not be a normal place to search for child abuse material.
“Normally, these appear on Russian websites,” he said.
Accused prefers ‘older females’
Cunningham, whose address was listed as being the Professional Standards Department at Bucksburn Police Office in Aberdeen, has 22 years of police service.
The grandfather has been a sergeant for 12 years, has no previous convictions and has been married for 32 years.
Giving evidence, he said he did not know how the image arrived on his phone and did not remember deleting it.
Cunningham described himself as “relatively computer illiterate.”
He told the court: “I can’t say I’ve come across anything that I would immediately describe as being an indecent image.
“Possibly there might be some that you might think would be questionable but it was not something I would have been downloading.”
Cunningham later told Mr Hamilton “questionable” was “probably poor word choice”.
He said: “I have a particular genre and that probably would be towards an older female.
“I can’t dispute that the image was on there.”
Cunningham said he would delete any pornographic material which automatically downloaded from Whatsapp.
Not deliberate
Defence solicitor Paul Barnett said: “The Crown require to prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was a deliberate act carried out by Mr Cunningham.
“In my respectful submission, there is no Crown evidence which puts that issue to rest.”
Sheriff Jillian Martin-Brown said: “I can’t see any positive action to create it – I can’t see any evidence.
“The Crown expert was candid that he was unable to identify the origin of the image.”
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