A Fife teenager kept more than 1,000 indecent images of children at his Kirkcaldy home, including in a vault app disguised as a calculator.
Cameron Miller, now of Polmont Young Offenders Institute, admitted by video link he kept the grotesque files at the house in Farne Court he shared with his mother, between April 25 2019 and January 22 2020.
19-year-old Cameron told police he had stumbled upon the filth by accident but Sheriff James Williamson questioned the teenager’s computing expertise.
Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court was told police raided his home at 8am and he told them he had an Xbox, laptop and mobile phone, all capable of accessing the internet.
He allowed police to search the password-protected laptop, which he claimed to have purchased second-hand from Cash Generator.
Hidden files
Officers found evidence Miller had been using Tor, a search engine often used to access the dark web.
Stored on the laptop were 1,242 indecent images of children and 567 vile videos.
142 of the pictures and 319 of the videos were of the most serious Category A type.
Police found suspicious search terms on the device as well.
Upon checking Miller’s mobile phone, police found a Calculator Vault filled with more disgusting files.
Fiscal depute Claire Bremner explained the vault is a mobile phone app looks and operates as a calculator but by entering a special passcode, an area for storing files could be accessed.
She added: “It looks like a simple calculator but by entering the correct password, the vault became accessible.”
Within the encrypted vault, officers found 18 category C images, a pair of category A videos, a category B video and two category C videos.
IT skills
Sheriff Williamson deferred sentence until September 13 to allow for criminal justice social work reports to be prepared.
He said: “For someone of his age, it seems to be relatively sophisticated.
“That doesn’t square that he stumbled on these by accident.
“Does he have formal computing skills?”
His defence solicitor Megan Davidson said Miller did not have any training in IT.