A convicted paedophile was caught with more than 11,000 images described as “some of the most obscene child abuse ever seen by investigators”
Nigel Childs had images depicting children ranging from newborn to teenage, with the majority of the images showing children under the age of five.
The 60-year-old was also found to have more than 14 hours of video footage showing children being abused, as well as images and video depicting bestiality involving adults, dogs and horses.
Perth Sheriff Court heard that Childs has previously been caught with 24,000 images of child abuse and had been on the sex offenders register until 2011.
He also showed “no signs of remorse” for his latest crimes during the police investigation.
Depute fiscal Charmaine Gilmartin told the court: “On April 21 2017 police officers attended the home of the accused to execute a search warrant.
“A search of the property was conducted and during this a number of electronic devices were seized, including two USB sticks and a laptop.
“A brief elementary examination uncovered images of children and the accused was detained.”
She added that after the accused was detained, the USB sticks and laptop were examined in more detail.
“The examiners of the electronic equipment have expressed the opinion that the videos recovered depict some of the most obscene child abuse ever seen by them to date, “ she said.
Of the 11,344 images that were found 1,688 were classed as category A, the most serious type. Of the 193 videos, 118 were deemed to be of the worst category.
He was also found to have software designed to hide his online identity and to clean his hard drive of evidence of his online activities.
Childs, of Firbank Road, Perth, admitted taking or permitting to be taken indecent images of children at his home address between December 2015 and April 2017.
He also pled guilty to possessing child abuse images between the same dates, and to possessing extreme pornography between December 2016 and April 2017.
Sentence was deferred for reports and Childs was remanded in custody.
