A blind man was caught with nearly 16,000 child abuse images and videos on his laptop, a trial has head.
Depute fiscal Eilidh Robertson told Perth Sheriff Court she had to “address the elephant in the room” after jurors saw Andrew Haire being helped into the dock wearing dark glasses and carrying a white stick.
She said: “The ladies and gentlemen will have seen that he suffers from visual impairment of some form.
“You have seen his presentation. He is using a stick to help guide his movement and he was brought into the courtroom.”
Detective Constable Ross Fraser, 40, told the trial yesterday that he had noticed Haire’s sight problems when officers raided his home in December 2018.
He said: “He disclosed to us that he is blind in one eye and the other he said was degenerating. One was almost completely blind and one was partially.”
DC Fraser said Haire had been able to move around his home unaided and had accepted responsibility for the laptop’s contents.
He said he was in the house with his parents when the early-morning intelligence-led raid was carried out and the whole family were “shocked”.
Haire told the officers: “I thought it was fully clothed. Some of them weren’t. I was trying to get rid of them.”
Police forensic computer analyst Michelle Baillie, 35, said numerous files had been downloaded and viewed again at later dates.
She said: “The absolute total was 15,976 images and 17 videos. They were category C indecent images of children. They were stripteasing and posing naked.”
In a joint minute read to the jury, Miss Robertson said it was agreed that the laptop was handed to police by Haire and that it contained indecent images of children.
Haire, 37, of Miller Road, Luncarty, denies two charges relating to having indecent images of children at his home between October 19 and December 8 2018.
The trial continues.