A former police officer used a secret camera to help prove he did not punch a woman in the face after she taunted him for being a paedophile.
Colin Murray provided footage of his run-in with Lana Robertson, 40, which had been shot on a camera mounted in his car parked a few yards away.
Robertson, who has previously been convicted of abusing Murray in the street over his sex offending past, claimed he had punched her in the face.
She, and her brother Douglas and his girlfriend, told Perth Sheriff Court that Murray had rushed out of his vehicle to confront them after they taunted him with “beast” chants.
They alleged the 61-year-old disgraced ex-police officer punched mother-of-two Ms Robertson in the latest in a long line of incidents between the parties.
But the court was shown the in-car footage which did not feature Murray striking Ms Robertson after getting out of his vehicle in Perth.
Sheriff Fiona Tait found Murray who was previously convicted of having a sickening hoard of child abuse images not guilty of assault.
Ms Robertson was shown mercy by a sheriff in January this year and admonished after subjecting Murray to a torrent of abuse about his sexual interest in children.
In that case, Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told Robertson she was wrong to try to take the law into her own hands.
Murray, who was jailed for possessing child abuse material, claimed that he had been “distressed” by Robertson’s verbal attack upon him.
Robertson, who did not deny making comments, was found guilty of causing Murray “fear and alarm” by abusing him on two occasions.
Murray complained he had been targeted repeatedly by his neighbour Robertson.
Murray was jailed in 2008 after being caught with one of the worst child abuse collections ever recovered by detectives in the United Kingdom.
He was handed an extended three-year sentence after a sheriff viewed the horrific images and videos he had stored on his computer.
He was placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years. Murray, who has adult children, was working as an incident manager for Norwich Union when his home was raided by detectives on November 15 2008.