A Cupar teenager who downloaded indecent images of children while suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after a quarry fall has been ordered to carry out 130 hours of unpaid work at Cupar Sheriff Court.
Hugh Neilson, 18, of Burnturk Farm, previously admitted having the images in his possession between September 28 2011 and March 14 2012.
A not guilty plea to having extreme pornographic images was accepted by the Crown at an earlier date.
The court heard police seized a memory stick containing 36 indecent images, 32 of which were at level one on the Copine scale and four at level two, a laptop holding 53 images, 52 of which were at level one and one at level two, and a second laptop holding 21 images, all at level one.
Defence solicitor Douglas Williams said Neilson began spending a lot of time on his computer as a result of being injured when he fell into a quarry at his parent’s farm.
The court heard the accident led to Neilson suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
He described the case as “somewhat unusual” because of Neilson’s age at the time, he was aged just 16, and therefore much closer in age to those in the images than is normally the case.
“He was sexually immature and there was a degree of naivety, in that he didn’t realise the images were illegal,” he added.
Sheriff Charles Macnair aso placed Neilson on a sexual offences protection order for three years and added his name to the sex offenders register.