A Fife school janitor has been placed on the sex offenders register after being caught with indecent images of children.
James Allan was found with 30 abuse images on a computer at his home in Lochgelly following a police raid in August last year.
The 60-year-old was in possession of two category A images which showed children aged six and eight engaged in horrific sex acts with adult males.
The paedophile, who no longer works at the school at which he was formerly employed, pled guilty to one charge of making indecent images and permitting them to be taken.
The court was told Allan had also taken a photograph of a friend’s child from Facebook before superimposing her face onto the body of an adult female.
Depute Fiscal Sarah Lumsden said: “In August 2017, officers from the Cyber Crime Unit received intelligence that an indecent image of a child had been accessed from the accused’s home.
“Officers obtained a search warrant for the locus. At 7.55am on August 31, police attended at the property and the now-accused answered the door and allowed police entry. The accused was within the address along with his wife.
“A system unit was seized and following examination, 30 unique indecent images were recovered.
“Two Category A images were found on the computer which had an account called James. The accused’s Facebook account was also found on the computer.
“One of the images was of the accused’s friend’s daughter which had been edited on his computer.
“System cleaning software was also found on the computer and had been used as recently as August 29 2017. The accused was interviewed and cautioned and made no reply.”
She added the age range of the children involved in the remaining images were girls between 12 and 14 years old.
Defence solicitor Chris Sneddon said: “In relation to the images from Facebook, the friend’s daughter’s face was transposed onto an adult female body.”
He added his client had been married for 36 years.
Sheriff Jamie Gilchrist QC said: “I’m required to obtain background reports before dealing with this matter.”
He deferred sentence until November 21 and ordered Allan to sign the sex offenders register.
Sharon McKenzie, Head of Human Resources at Fife Council said: “As a responsible employer, we can’t discuss the individual circumstances of any current or former employees.
“While this is a criminal matter, Fife Council has a clear Code of Conduct for our employees and any behaviour falling short of this is dealt with appropriately.”
