Nairn man caught after sharing indecent images of children with undercover police officer
A Nairn man was snared by an undercover police officer after sharing indecent images of children with the decoy seeking people with an interest in the obscene material.
The information was passed on to other colleagues and a search was carried out on 57-year-old Francis Ward's home in Gordon Street on March 14 last year.
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Fiscal depute Emily Hood told Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald that on the contents of the warrant being read out, Ward stated: "When you go into the house, there's a laptop in the living room, there's nothing on that. There's a new one in the kitchen, there's nothing on that either. What you are looking for is on the tablet on the bedside table."
Inverness Sheriff Court heard that two of the devices were seized and on analysis, a total of 1251 accessible and inaccessible photographs and videos were found, 313 of them were in the most serious category of obscenity.
Ms Hood added: "Evidence was also found of the accused sending and receiving images through social media messenger platforms, plus 37,105 messages sent through 1352 chat threads.
"These involved videos of children ranging from five to 16 years old involved in penetrative activity with adult males. Creation dates were between September 16, 2023 and March 13, 2024.
"The total number of inaccessible files across the devices is 540 images and 341 videos and the number of unique inaccessible files is 257 images and 302 videos. The total video runtime is six hours and 12 minutes."
Defence solicitor David Patterson reserved his comments until a background report had been prepared on his client who will re-appear for sentence on April 1.
Ward, who admitted possessing, downloading and distributing indecent images was immediately placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register.
