A former Fife paramedic and university lecturer who hoarded sick photographs of children and sent naked images of a woman to a friend on WhatsApp has avoided a prison sentence.
Keith Cameron was arrested at a graduation dinner last summer by police executing a child sexual abuse material warrant, Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard.
The 51-year-old appeared this week for sentencing after earlier pleading guilty to possessing indecent images of girls – some as young as five – and disclosing photographs of a person in an intimate situation without approval.
Sheriff James Williamson told Cameron his offending was “frankly hideous”.
The sheriff said: “This criminal justice social work report is littered with self-pity and not one expression of shame or embarrassment or consideration of the effect of your behaviour on (the woman)”.
Sheriff Williamson concluded first offender Cameron would “only just avoid a custodial sentence” and instead gave him 225 hours of unpaid work and three years of offender supervision with strict requirements.
Cameron was also put on the sex offenders register for three years.
Sheriff Williamson added: “Had there been any history of offending I would have sent you to prison.
“In the event you breach this order, that will happen.
“There is a certain arrogance about you which suggests you may.
“If you come back before me I will send you to prison for two years”.
Arrested at dinner
Prosecutor Lee-Anne Barclay told the court previously that in June last year, police were made aware someone they believed to be Cameron was uploading indecent images of children online.
A search warrant was executed at his old home in Kirkcaldy at 3.50pm on June 30.
However, he was not home and after speaking to his then wife, officers went to the graduation dinner in Glasgow.
They took him from there to Kirkcaldy police station where they examined his mobile phone.
On the device, they found 16 category C images of girls aged between five and 16.
The girls were all naked or partially clothed and posing erotically.
Further police investigations uncovered a 61-second video of a woman in her early 20s getting changed.
In January 2022, he had sent two still images from the video to a friend on WhatsApp, showing the woman with her breasts exposed.
He sent more the following month and captioned a photo with a sexual slur.
Cameron admitted disclosing photographs which showed another person in an intimate situation without permission on dates in January and February 2022 – a charge under legislation commonly known as revenge porn.
He also admitted possessing indecent images of children between September 2021 and June 2023.
Not guilty pleas to charges of voyeurism and breaching the peace were accepted.
Defence lawyer Dewar Spence told the court his client has since moved from Fife to Roseneath in Argyll and Bute and is now divorced.
Cameron was a lecturer in paramedicine at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), joining in 2018.
He was also qualified as a pre-hospital emergency care instructor.
Prior to that, he spent more than two decades on the frontline as a paramedic with the Scottish Ambulance Service in Fife.
In late April this year, he was furnished with an interim suspension from operating as a paramedic by the Health and Care Professions Tribunal.
That suspension will be reviewed no later than October 29 2024.
A GCU spokesperson confirmed Cameron is no longer an employee at the university.
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