A Montrose paedophile has been spared prison despite having downloaded and shared more than a days worth of child sex abuse material.
Police also found an unlicensed air rifle in Andrew Lapidus’ home, where he lived alone, during a raid last year.
The child sex offender blamed poor “mental health” for stashing files of girls as young as four being sexually abused on a hard drive underneath his bed.
The 37-year-old first offender became embroiled in the possession of child sex-abuse images and the dark web while searching for illegal drugs, Dundee Sheriff Court was told.
In mitigation for his disgusting crimes, solicitor Sarah Russo said: “These offences came at a time when he was struggling with his mental health, drug and alcohol mis-use.
“His relationship with the dark web started with his drug use.
“He does not appear to be deemed a high risk of committing harm.
“He had self-referred to (sex offender programme) Stop It Now, a programme he completed.
“It gave him insight into his offending behaviour.”
Police raid
Fiscal depute Lynne Mannion told the court officers arrived at Lapidus’ home in Carnegie Street, Montrose, at 8.10am on September 29 2021.
They believed someone using a device with an IP address registered there was involved in sharing child sex abuse material online in July that year.
Some of the files uncovered by police featured girls between the ages of four and 13 being abused.
Every device analysed contained files categorised as A, B and C in severity.
In total, Lapidus’ cache consisted of 4,176 twisted files – 272 of which were videos.
More than 1,000 of the images and more than 250 of the videos were considered to be of the most graphic kind.
Lapidus admitted that between February 10 2020 and September 22 2021, he took or made indecent images of children.
He also pled guilty to possessing “extreme” pornography realistically depicting humans engaging in sexual activity with horses between September 15 and 29 in 2022.
He admitted owning an air rifle without a certificate.
Harm to children and animals
Sheriff Krista Johnston sentenced Lapidus to a three-year supervision order and 150 hours unpaid work.
He was also fined £200 for the rifle and registered as a sex offender for three years.
She added: “Your actions of accessing, sharing and finding these images appears to have been premeditated.
“You have become involved in an industry which abuses trust, and the harm to its young victims and animals would have been significant.”
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