A paedophile who photographed himself repeatedly sexually abusing a child was caught after cybercrime investigators discovered he was using his home wifi to share the sickening images.
St Cyrus offshore worker Alan Moir, 43, was brought to justice after the Police received intelligence from the National Online Child Abuse Prevention (NOCAP) organisation.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard today how NOCAP had discovered that an IP address had been sharing child abuse content and linked it to Moir’s home in St Cyrus.
The court heard that investigators found that the explicit content was being shared from an app called Dropbox registered to an email address linked to Moir.
This information led to the police obtaining a search warrant for Moir’s Invergarry Park home.
Evidence of abuse found on devices
Officers seized a mobile phone from Moir following a raid at his home on November 25 2023.
They also found a second handset which was found in the top drawer of a cabinet in the main bedroom of his property.
Upon examining the devices, officers found images of Moir sexually assaulting a young child.
Prosecutor William Frain-Bell KC told judge Lady Haldane that a total of 1,663 inaccessible still images of abuse were found on the handsets.
Speaking about the nature of the abuse, Mr Frain-Bell said the first set of images showed the child lying on a bed and several of these photographs had sexual comments written on them.
“Also discovered in the photo album cache were 1,109 files containing other indecent images of children,” he said.
“These images featured girls aged between one and 13-years-old engaging in sadistic sexual activity, penetrative sexual activity with adults, non-penetrative sexual activity with adults and sexualised posing.”
Paedophile gave no comment interview
The story emerged after Moir pleaded guilty to a charge of sexually assaulting a young child by penetration on two occasions between January 1 2018 and August 12 2019. He also admitted a charge of permitting to take or make indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children between May 1 2018 and November 15 2023.
An IP address is a unique numerical identifier assigned to each device or network on a computer network using the Internet Protocol.
On a Wi-Fi network, your device gets an IP address from your router, allowing it to communicate on the network and the internet.
Mr Frain-Bell told Lady Haldane that police arrested Moir and took him into custody following the raid at the home.
He added: “The accused was interviewed. He gave a no comment interview.”
Second victim discovered
During the police probe, officers found that Moir had taken indecent photos of another child, who was thought to be aged between 15 to 17 at the time.
Mr Frain-Bell said there were over 80 indecent images taken of Moir’s first victim and over 150 indecent “pseudo-photographs” of his second victim.
The advocate depute added: “There were over 1,400 indecent images of young girls aged between one and 13 years of age.”
The court heard that Moir was a first offender who had worked in the oil and gas industry prior to his arrest.
Defence advocate Gillian Ross KC told Lady Haldane that since her client was a first offender, the court was obliged to obtain a report into Moir’s background.
She also asked for her client to be given bail.
Sex abuser behind bars
Ms Ross added: “Mr Moir is aware that a custodial sentence is at the forefront of your ladyship’s mind – that said, he asked for bail.
“He has never been in trouble before. He has had employment in oil and gas industry.”
Lady Haldane refused to grant Moir bail and remanded him in custody. She also placed him on the Sex Offenders Register and called for a background report.
She added: “These offences are very serious indeed. The making of indecent images of children is a crime with real consequences and long lasting effects on those who the crime is perpetrated upon.
“You have asked for bail. However, given the gravity of the offences to which you have pleaded guilty to and the likely disposal, I have determined that you should be remanded in custody.”
Moir will be sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow next month.