A 54-year-old man who downloaded child pornography while on his travels throughout Scotland escaped a jail sentence at Inverness Sheriff Court yesterday.
A background report had been called for by Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood on John Baillie, of Culcabock Road, Inverness, who admitted a similar offence from some years ago.
He had earlier admitted to downloading two videos and 22 still indecent images of young girls about 10 years of age, both clothed and naked between January and August last year.
He also pleaded guilty to possessing a two explicit videos and one still image, although the remaining 21, all of which were at the lowest end of the obscene scale, had been permanently deleted.
The court had been told that Baillie had engaged in chat rooms initially about football but it evolved into viewing child porn, fiscal depute Robert Weir said.
Mr Weir added that Baillie later told police: “that he had become addicted and he went from doing this once a week to every other day”.
Defence solicitor Pauline Chapman said: “He is struggling to understand his compulsion. He told police that he needed help.”
Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood ordered Baillie to carry out 120 hours of unpaid community work, to undertake a sex offender’s programme and remain under social work supervision for three years.
He was also placed on the Sex Offender’s Register for the same period.