A jury was shown the police interview of a company director in which he claimed to have “no knowledge whatsoever” of a banned Canadian website containing indecent images of young boys.
The interview with Alasdair Chalmers took place after he went voluntarily to police HQ in Dundee just hours after detectives seized items from his home in Angus.
In what he told officers was a “distressing” interview, Chalmers admitted he had accessed pornography on the internet, but said the sites he had visited were mainstream adult interest.
Chalmers, 60, of West Steading, Mains of Gagie, Kellas, denies an indictment alleging that between March 20 2005 and April 26 2011, at his home address and elsewhere, he took or permitted to be taken or made indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children.
He is also charged with possessing indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children between March 20 2005 and January 31 2014.
On the fourth day of evidence, jurors at Forfar Sheriff Court were played the video of the recorded interview with Detective Constable Innes Morrison and a colleague on January 31 2014.
The court heard officers were informed Chalmers had been a company director with DP&L Group Ltd.
Chalmers said he had “no knowledge” of a Canadian website that may have contained indecent images, or of any knowledge of indecent images on any computers and that the computers could have been accessed by others.
Earlier, the trial heard cyber-crime forensic analyst Kevin Alexander confirm to advocate Drew McKenzie, counsel for Chalmers, that 97% of some 900 images recovered from the devices seized were in locations on the machines where a regular user could simply have been unaware of their existence.
The trial earlier heard evidence of 306 “live” images and more than 600 deleted or recovered images. Internet browsing history on the devices showed access to a Russian-based site and galleries of boys aged 8 to 16 were recovered.
The trial continues.