By Gordon Berry

THE HIGH Court has rejected an appeal against the conviction of a young man who became the first person in Fife to be convicted of distributing child pornography.

Glen Peebles (20) had the images on a computer at his home, and was convicted of four different charges when he stood trial before Sheriff Evans and a jury at Cupar in late 2005.

He had been found guilty by unanimous verdicts of one charge of possessing indecent or pseudo pictures of children and another of making such pictures.

Majority verdicts had been delivered in relation to one charge of possessing pictures with a view to distribution and another of showing or distributing them.

The charges all related to a period between July 3 and September 30, 2003, at the house in Strathmiglo where the accused lived at the time.

During the case the court had heard evidence that both moving and still images had been found on a computer seized from the house.

When examined by police specialists the computer was found to contain some images involving very young children, some as young as four or five, engaged in sexual activity with adults and other children.

During the case graphic descriptions of the abuse being suffered by some of the children were outlined in court, to the extent that some members of the jury indicated that they did not want to view the images.

The police, the court heard, had also found that a number of images had been made available for sharing with other computer users, and members of the jury had been able to see documentary evidence of this “uploading” actually happening on a screen which would have been before the accused at the time.

After the case an appeal was lodged with the High Court on three separate grounds, these being that the accused had failed to understand a caution by police, there was no link between the accused’s computer and a computer referred to in a report before the court, and there was no evidence that Peebles had distributed any of the images libelled.

The three judges—Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Osborne and Lord Johnston—have rejected the grounds of appeal.

On the question of the caution, the judges said that although Peebles had a low IQ, he had shown a clear understanding of the operation of a computer and the procedure of downloading, and in particular the nature of the computer programme he had been using.

The second ground of appeal was dismissed because two police officers had identified the computer and had signed a label, and in relation to the third ground it was pointed out that there had been evidence other users had accessed a shared folder in the accused’s computer.

A separate appeal lodged by the Crown in relation to the two year probation order imposed by Sheriff George Evans at the end of the case has yet to be decided.

After the case Fife police warned that the internet is not the “anonymous” place many people think it to be, and they stressed that there will be no let up in the fight against child pornography.