A paedophile has been jailed after police found his secret mobile phone hidden under a chest of drawers.
Peter Davidson was required to alert police to any new online usernames or accounts and make devices available for inspection due to a previous conviction related to indecent images of children.
But the 31-year-old was caught with the secret mobile phone, which also had software installed on it that could hide his browser history and IP address.
Fiscal depute Lynne MacVicar told Aberdeen Sheriff Court Davidson had previously been convicted, in 2017, of offences relating to indecent images of children and sexual communication with a child.
As a result, he was placed on the sex offenders register and, in 2018, handed a sexual offences prevention order.
Davidson made Google account with false name
Ms MacVicar said Davidson had informed police of a planned trip to London in November 2021 and, while there, a Metropolitan officer visited and examined his mobile phone.
The officer saw messages exchanged between Davidson and another person via Facebook Messenger.
On December 3 2021, Davidson attended at Inverurie Police Station where his phone was again examined and some of the messages seen by the officer in London were no longer visible, suggesting he had deleted them.
In March last year, police received intelligence that Davidson was using a particular phone number that he had not notified the police of.
A search warrant was executed at his address on March 11 and a systematic search was carried out.
Ms MacVicar said: “A Motorola mobile phone was recovered from the accused’s bedroom. It had been concealed under a chest of drawers.
“The accused had never informed the police that he owned or used this device and had never provided it to officers for inspection on any of their routine visits.”
The hidden phone was forensically examined and found to contain a number of indecent images and videos of children, the majority of which were classed as category C, the least serious, although one video was category A.
Software had also been installed to block search history being stored and to allow the user to remain anonymous online without their activity being tracked.
‘He’s described as being hopeless, in the respect that he’s without hope’
The phone examination also revealed Davidson had been using the Kik messenger application with a username he had not informed the police about, and that he had created a Google account in a false name.
Davidson, a prisoner of HMP Grampian, pled guilty to a total of eight charges, including one of taking, permitting to be taken or making indecent images of children and one of possession of such images.
He also admitted four charges of breaching the terms of his sexual offences prevention order and two of failing to notify police of online accounts.
Defence agent Stuart Flowerdew acknowledged that a court-ordered social work report had a “particularly negative feel to it” that was “reflective of his present circumstances”.
He added: “He’s described as being hopeless, in the respect that he’s without hope.”
However, the solicitor explained there had been positive developments during Davidson’s time on remand and he had been engaging with mental health services.
He told the court Davidson was also receiving trauma counselling.
Sheriff Graham Buchanan ordered Davidson to be jailed for two years and two months and made him subject to the notification requirements of the sexual offences act for 10 years.
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