An Olympic medallist who taught Dundee children with disabilities how to swim has escaped a prison sentence, despite being caught downloading child abuse material for a second time.
Former assistant Scout leader Andrew Gray, who won gold in the Special Olympics, used his Nintendo DS to find the sickening images without his parents finding out.
He was warned in 2016 after his first offence, if he did it again he could “expect to go to prison for several years”.
However, on Monday, Sheriff Gregor Murray placed Gray under supervision for a year and ordered him to carry out 140 hours unpaid work in the community at Dundee Sheriff Court.
He said: “Yours is a troubling case.
“In 2016 you pled guilty to an analogous offence.
“You complied with that community-based sentence.
“However, you managed to offend again very soon after that expired and my concern was the manner of that.
“What you did was deliberately designed to prevent your parents, who were monitoring your internet use, from knowing what you were doing.”
He told Gray he would only be allowed to send him to prison for a very brief period because of the low number of images recovered – around 30 – and the fact he pled guilty at an early stage and would be entitled to a discount.
He said: “I am persuaded – just – that there is an alternative to custody in your case.”
Secretly stored images on gaming device
The court was told Gray’s parents kept watch on what he was viewing online but were unaware he would be able to access the internet through his Nintendo DS gaming device.
Gray had downloaded images of young children across categories A, B and C and had also viewed sites including Amazon on the device in a bid to mask what he was up to.
His solicitor told the court it would be Gray’s “preferred option” not to be sent to prison and said jail would not address his issues in the longer term.
Gray was also given a community-based sentence in 2016 after being caught with child sex abuse images.
He was placed under supervision for three years after being caught with hundreds of images.
Dundee Sheriff Court was told at that time he has Asperger’s Syndrome but did not require medication.
Gold medal winner’s fall from grace
Gray, who won gold in the 25-metre butterfly at the 2007 games in Shanghai, was also ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for five years in 2016.
Dundee Sheriff Court was told previously police officers discovered the material after receiving confidential information.
A computer tower and external hard drive were recovered and contained indecent images of children and internet searches including “naked toddler”.
A total of 893 images were recovered, with 87 at the most serious level.
Gray, of Dundee, admitted taking or making indecent images of children at his home between 18 March and 29 August 2015.
Sheriff Alastair Brown ordered Gray to take part in a sex offenders group work programme and to abide by strict conditions on his access to the internet.
The sheriff told him: “Quite apart from anything else these images are of real children. These things have really happened to them.
“They have been abused and the only reason for that is to provide images for people who want to look at them.
“By viewing them you help to make the abuse happen.
“If you ever do this again, and in particular if you share images with anyone else, you can expect to go to prison for several years.”
