A teenager who downloaded a sick image of a baby girl being abused told a social worker: “It’s no big deal.”
Paedophile Ewan Brown “did not seem duly concerned” when the court worker pointed out the young child was being sexually abused by a man, Inverness Sheriff Court was told.
The 19-year-old previously admitted downloading a total of 63 still images of children aged between two and eight onto his mobile phone between October 14 and October 21 2022.
Fiscal depute Naomi Duffy-Welsh told Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald: “Acting on intelligence, police raided his home and seized the mobile phone.
“He co-operated with officers giving them the PIN number.
“He made partial admissions saying he was looking for normal pornography and when he clicked on a site it took him to a subsequent site containing indecent images of children.
“He viewed the links, screenshotted and downloaded still images and videos, claiming he was going to report them to the authorities.
“But he made no effort to do so, saying he felt guilty about them and thought he would get into trouble for viewing them.”
‘It has been blown out of proportion’
Sheriff Macdonald took the rare step of quoting Brown’s words from the confidential court-ordered report.
In it, Brown told the social worker: “It is no big deal. I should not be in the criminal justice system. It has been blown out of proportion.”
Addressing the teenager, Sheriff Macdonald said: “I see young men like you in court who view vile images of children being abused, most often to get some pleasure from it. I never understand that.
“I can assure you it is a big deal. You are a young man who needs help and the starting point is accepting what you have done. Because of your age, I will not send you to custody.
“I will place you on a community payback order with supervision for three years and on a programme entitled ‘Moving Forward to Change’ which is designed for people like you who view images like this to gain sexual gratification.”
The sheriff also placed Brown, of Cedarwood Crescent, Inverness, on the sex offender’s register for three years.
