A Kirkcaldy pervert kept dozens of obscene child abuse videos in a folder marked “Mega Downloads” in his computer’s recycling bin.
Kevin Bell claimed he didn’t know the deleted files were still stored on his hard drive.
The 32-year-old told Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court he was sent the material by a stranger on an internet chat app, but immediately deleted them when he realised what they were.
The court heard that nearly two years after the files were sent to Bell, police computer experts found them in the machine’s trash folder.
After a day-long trial, jurors found Bell guilty of downloading and possessing the images.
After delivering their verdict, he jury was told Bell was previously on the Sex Offenders Register for indecently communicating with a child.
Mega downloads
The court heard that police cyber-experts were unable to carry out a full forensic analysis of Bell’s computer due to a faulty hard drive.
However, an initial “triage” of the machine by police officers looking to identify illegal material found that he had 41 videos, including 18 in the highest category A.
Expert witness Tom Giles, a computer forensic analyst with Police Scotland, said the videos were within a subfolder titled “Mega Downloads”.
He said: “This was a folder identified in the recycling bin.
“It’s a location where, when a file is deleted it goes to the recycling bin.
“But it functions like any other folder – items can be moved, but can be restored by the user.
“This process requires a computer to return to where the file was before.”
Bell’s CV found in same folder
He said he was unable to determine when the file have been moved back to the computer’s desktop at any point as this would have required a full forensic analysis.
However among the 13 files in the recycling bin was a folder containing a CV with the name and details of Bell indicating he was the user of the computer.
There were 18 category A videos, 14 category B and nine at category C. The videos featured girls between the ages of three and 12.
Giving evidence in his own defence, Bell said he had been sent the “vile” images while using Random Chat – an app that allows users to chat via text with strangers around the world.
He said: “I was on a chat program, talking to random people.
“We were talking about general stuff – we were chatting about what it was like in Scotland and asking what it was like in America, or wherever they were from.
“He never gave me his name, and I don’t know where he was from in India.
Immediately deleted child abuse videos
“He sent a link to me and told me to have a look at it.
Asked by solicitor, Kerr Sneddon if he had asked for images to be sent, he replied: “I did not, no”.
Asked if the files had sexually suggestive names, Bell said they did not.
“I tried to open it on my phone. My phone wasn’t opening it so I sent it to my PC.”
He said he opened a single video before realising it’s “vile” content.
He said: “I got rid of it. I just deleted it.
“I don’t know much about computers at all, my PC was for gaming.
“I thought they were gone completely off my PC.”
Random Chat app deleted due to safety
He denied knowing that he could have access the file from the computers recycling bin.
He said he had deleted the folder containing images within one minute and then had deleted the chat app “because it wasn’t safe”.
Bell insisted that the chat had not been sexual prior to being sent a link to download the videos.
Fiscal depute Lora Apostalova invited the jury to find him guilty as Bell was “savvy” enough about computers to sent the file from his phone to his PC and was “determined” to open the link by doing so.
She said the files were within a folder created by the user, not one created by the computer.
Conviction
The jury of seven men and eight women unanimously convicted Bell, of Kirkcaldy, of downloading and possession child abuse images at his home address between September 2019 and March 2021.
Following conviction, the court heard that Bell was placed on the sex offenders’ register for a year in 2018 after communicating indecently with a child.
Sentence was deferred for reports and Bell was released on bail.
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