A former RAF man who served with the search and rescue helicopters has been jailed for 21 months after being caught with indecent images of children.
Married Andrew Burton, of Lochhills, Elgin, took one of the photographs himself of a seven-year-old girl he knew with her genitals exposed, Inverness Sheriff Court was told.
When police arrested the 55-year-old first offender he told them: “That was rather silly of me.”
Sentencing him, Sheriff Sara Matheson said: “This involved a gross breach of trust.
“Despite the efforts you have made for your rehabilitation, your previous good character and service to your country, there is no alternative to a prison sentence to deter others.”
Crime ‘occurred at a particularly low point in his life’
She described his behaviour as “appalling” and ordered that he remain on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
Defence solicitor Robert Cruickshank said that his client had immediately enrolled for a “Stop it” programme designed to offer help to sex offenders.
He said: “He served with the RAF for 23 years and has worked all his life. But he lost his job when this came to light. He retains the support of his wife.”
Referring to the taking of the photograph of the child, Mr Cruickshank said: “It was an isolated incident which occurred at a particularly low point in his life after a road accident.”
Burton was caught with a “large amount” of indecent images on various devices after police carried out a raid on his Elgin home
He admitted charges of taking, permitting to be taken or making indecent images of children and possessing indecent images of children.
He also pled guilty to causing a child under 13 to participate in a sexual activity by inducing her to pose with her underwear pulled to one side and her genitals exposed before photographing her.
Police raid home and seized devices
Fiscal depute Pauline Gair told the court that Burton’s home was raided on March 21 last year after police received intelligence that the occupant might have indecent images of children.
She said: “A systematic search of the locus was then carried out by the police and during this search 25 devices were recovered from within the locus, of which 19 were seized including; mobile telephones, an external hard drive, a laptop and a card reader with micro SD card.
“The accused stated that those were his property and provided his passwords.”
Officers who examined the devices uncovered a number of cached picture files ranging in seriousness from category A to category C, as well as a “large amount of child sexual abuse material of all ages and categories”.
Further investigation into the subject of one picture allowed police to identify the child involved.
Image data revealed it was likely to have been taken when the girl was just seven-years-old using the same make of mobile phone seized from Burton’s home.
Mrs Gair said: “Police informed the accused that the cybercrime preview examination of the seized devices had been positive for indecent images of children.
“At this, the accused stated: ‘Yes, that was rather silly of me.’”