A Dunfermline man was caught with a sick stash of child abuse material, which included children having sex with animals, after meeting fellow paedophiles on Twitter.
Ian Dunbar’s stockpile of sick images and videos depicted boys and girls aged between three and 12 being raped.
The 69-year-old, of Queens Court, Dunfermline, appeared at the city’s sheriff court to plead guilty to having indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children at an address in the street or elsewhere between July 6 2022 and February 22 2023.
Dunbar further admitted distributing or showing indecent photographs of children between February 19 and February 21 last year.
He was placed on the Sex Offenders Register and will be sentenced later.
Met abusers on Twitter
Prosecutor Lee-Anne Barclay told the court that in February last year police received intelligence that the user of a Twitter account linked to Dunbar was uploading child sexual abuse material to the internet.
Detectives from the National Child Abuse Investigation Unit searched the property and recovered a mobile phone and PC.
Dunbar was arrested and spoke freely to police during an interview, confirming the devices belonged to him.
He told them he met like-minded users on Twitter and moved the chat to an app called Telegram, where the distribution of indecent images occurred.
He said videos and images had been sent to him from other users.
Thousands of pics and 8 minutes of video
Cybercrime analysis revealed 1,158 files containing child sexual abuse material on a hard drive, the fiscal depute said.
The files contained male and female children aged between about three and 12 engaged in sexual activity.
The fiscal depute continued: “In addition, some files depicted penetrative sexual activity with children and animals”.
The material found ranged from category A – the most graphic kind – to category C, which made up the majority of the stash.
On the mobile phone, 68 abuse files were found.
Ms Barclay said these depicted male and female children aged as young as three involved in the same type of sexual activities as previously mentioned.
Most of the files were graded category A and there was a combined video run time of eight minutes and 35 seconds.
A number of ‘chats’ were found on the Telegram app showing an interest in the abuse material.
Psychological support sought
Defence lawyer Kevin Connor said first offender Dunbar is aware of the serious nature of these offences and has engaged with charity Stop It Now throughout the period since his arrest, as well as with a psychologist.
Sheriff Charles Lugton deferred sentence to March 14 obtain background reports and Dunbar’s bail was continued.
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