A man has admitted downloading more than 500 indecent images of children over an 18-month period.
Inverness Sheriff Court was told that David Mitchell, whose address on court papers was given as Hillhead Road, Tornagrain, near Inverness, had 104 images of the most graphic kind.
Mitchell, 32, appeared before Sheriff Margaret Neilson and admitted having downloaded the material on his mobile phone between March 8 2019 and September 24 2020.
Fiscal depute Robert Weir told the court: “On 14 September 2020 officers from the national child abuse investigation unit, Inverness, received information that a device had been involved in child abuse images from an IP address where the accused lives.”
A search warrant was obtained and his phone was seized.
Mr Weir said: “The accused’s phone was taken from his person, which he identified as his personal mobile and provided the PIN access code required to unlock the phone.”
The court heard that no images were immediately found, but “indicative material” was and so the phone was sent for further analysis.
“The phone was subsequently examined by the forensic computer analysts and was found to contain indecent images of children,” said Mr Weir.
“A total of 589 inaccessible indecent images of children were found,” the fiscal depute told the court.
“This was made up of 104 category A still images, 82 category B still images and 403 category C images.”
When charged Mitchell told police: “I don’t know what to say.”
Sentence was deferred until December 15 for a background report and Mitchell was immediately placed on the Sex Offender’s Register.
Sheriff Neilson told defence solicitor Duncan Henderson that Mitchell’s bail would be continued “meantime.”
