A man who was caught with thousands of indecent images of children and videos of adults involved in sex acts with horses, dogs and a fish, has been jailed.
Derek Piper was handed an 15 month sentence at Aberdeen Sheriff Court this morning after he previously admitted downloading 6,449 pornographic pictures of children as well as 229 illicit videos.
The films involving children had a combined total play time of more than 34 hours and involved mostly girls aged between two and 15.
Piper further admitted being in possession of a hoard of “extreme” pornography involving animals and adults.
The 39-year-old had 308 images and 236 videos.
In total the footage involving animals ran to 95 hours and 49 minutes.
This morning, the court heard officers discovered his stash after an e-mail address linked to him had been found to have accessed the indecent images.
When he was interviewed Piper admitted that he lived alone and he was the only person who had access to his computer.
Fiscal depute Kelly Mitchell said that when questioned he said if he ever came across any child pornography he would just delete it.
The offences were carried out at his home, 25 F Prospect Terrace, Aberdeen, between November 26, 2011 and August 21, 2014.
Of the images and videos found 5,859 were considered to be at level one – the lowest end of the scale.
However, 160 were at level four and three videos containing animals and adults were classed as being at level five.
Representing Piper, solicitor Laura Gracie said her client had been suspended and later made redundant from his well paying job after the allegations were made against him.
She told the court that he had a great deal of victim empathy and said he was disturbed by his own behaviour given he now had a 10 month old child.
Ms Gracie said that he would be an idea candidate to take part in a rehabilitation course and said he had already taken steps to modify his offending behaviour.
However Sheriff Annella Cowan said that, given the running time of the videos involved, there was no alternative than to send him to jail.
She also placed him on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.