A Fife man found with dozens of child abuse images has dodged a jail sentence.
John Coote’s stash included a number of Category-A videos, the highest level of seriousness.
Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court heard he was just 21 at the time of the offence.
Defence agent James Walker said Coote accepted his guilt and had not committed any further offences since he was caught.
He added Coote had been convicted of an offence in an English court and had received a suspended sentence.
The nature of the offence was not revealed in court on Tuesday.
‘Not too late to make changes’
Mr Walker said: “He finds himself in a very challenging situation.
“He’s still very young and perhaps it’s not too late for him to make changes.”
Coote, 23, pled guilty to possessing indecent images of children at his address in Rossend Terrace, Burntisland between August 18, 2019, and March 12 2020.
The court had previously heard police officers had executed a search warrant in the early evening of March 12, 2020.
Officers discovered a mobile phone and a USB drive which each contained a number of sick files.
Police found 47 indecent videos and 44 indecent images of children on a USB memory stick belonging to Coote, along with further grotesque images on his mobile phone.
Investigators said the majority of the videos were at the worst level – category A.
Category A images are those which show full sex between featured parties, as well as activities involving animals or sadism.
Sheriff James Williamson placed Coote on a supervision order for a period of three years.
In addition he will be subject to the notification requirements of the sex offenders register for the same period.
Coote was also told he cannot own any device capable of connecting to the internet unless it can store a history of its usage and he is banned from deleting that history.
He is further banned from knowingly having contact with anyone under the age of 16.
