A 54-year-old Methil man who sought therapy after being caught downloading indecent images of children has avoided jail.
Alistair McGow, of Dubbieside, was discovered to have 21 images ranging from levels one to four on his computer which showed boys and girls aged nine to 14 engaged in sexual acts McGow started looking at the images after viewing adult pornography.
When interviewed by police officers he admitted using a file sharing system called Limerunner and searching for terms such as lolita, young and preteen.
McGow said he downloaded and viewed videos but deleted them and removed them from his computer’s recycle bin so his partner could not find them.
He also admitted he knew keyword search terms associated with material depicting the abuse of children.
When his computer was searched the indecent images were discovered in thumbnail cache files which could only be viewed using special forensic software.
Sheriff James Williamson heard McGow lost his job and had his daughter refuse to speak to him since his arrest.
Defence solicitor Mark Harrower told Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court: “He was a plant manager at a plant in Kirkcaldy but lost his job in mid-May as he wasn’t able to function properly with this hanging over him.
“He was looking at adult pornography and sometimes that throws up illegal images and he accepts that he went back to look at them.”
He said his client was engaged with Stop it Now! Scotland, a national programme for the prevention of sexual abuse, and was seeing a private psychotherapist as well.
McGow admitted that between April 29 2013 and October 29 2013, at his home address, he took or permitted to be taken or made indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children.
Sheriff Williamson sentenced McGow to a three-year community payback order, which included no unsupervised access to children under 16, no access to a computer unless it could retain internet history and 225 hours of unpaid work.
He also placed McGow on the sex offenders register.
He told McGow: “This is the only opportunity you have to avoid custody. In light of a breach you will almost undoubtedly be sentenced to a term of imprisonment.”