A sheriff has jailed a Perth paedophile for 12 months, after telling him many of the youngsters who had been abused would “suffer in later life”.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis told Ross Aspinall, 30, of Rannoch Road, he and his fellow sheriffs have to view child abuse images and it was “patently obvious” that many of the children involved, most of whom do not live in the UK, were “distressed”.
Perth Sheriff Court had heard Aspinall had on one laptop computer 459 indecent images of female children being sexually abused. These were divided into 148 at level one, 27 at level two, 95 at level three, 163 at level four and 34 at level five of the Copine scale, used to categorise the severity of such images.
Police had received information about Aspinall, leading them to look over his home, and he was later questioned by officers.
On another hard drive, police found 51 indecent video files, which featured children aged between two and 12, the court heard.
Three of these were at level one, five at level two, nine at level three, 32 at level four and two at level five. Another hard drive contained 39 indecent video files, which had been downloaded using peer-to-peer software.
Aspinall admitted possessing indecent photographs of children at his home between September 12 2012 and June 28 last year.
Solicitor Linda Clark, defending, said her client had no previous convictions and described the offences as “not the most significant” number of images to come before the court. “However, there are level four and five images,” she said.
Sentencing Aspinall, Sheriff Foulis told him: “Cases such as this are always somewhat distasteful to deal with. To get a flavour of the images involved, I and my fellow sheriffs have to view a selection of these and you wonder as to the effect these have on the children concerned.”
Aspinall was also ordered to serve three years’ extended sentence on licence upon his release from prison and placed indefinitely on the sex offenders register.