A serial pervert who amassed a haul of child abuse images has been sent back to prison.
Anthony Sheridan was jailed for two years in 2015 after being caught with more than 13,000 indecent images – a sentence later reduced to 18 months on appeal, of which he spent just nine months in remand.
That sentence left him on licence for a further three and a half years – but in April last year he admitted downloading indecent images again.
A police raid on his home revealed hundreds of images stored on his computer and erasure software.
Prosecutor Chris McIntosh previously told Dundee Sheriff Court: “A total of 359 indecent images – 310 of them unique – were found. A further 416 concerning images were found in a thumbcache folder.
“On April 19 2018, during a routine social work appointment, the accused disclosed he had been downloading indecent images of children. A breach report was submitted and the accused’s licence was revoked.”
Sheridan, 39, a prisoner at Perth, pleaded guilty on indictment to charges of downloading and possessing indecent images of children at an address on Arthurstone Terrace.
Theo Finlay, defending, said Sheridan would be better suited to being managed in the community instead of behind bars.
He said: “The report gives a greater insight into Sheridan as an individual, and he himself has become more honest in his own self-analysis.
“A community order would be a tool to prevent him dipping into this form of offending.”
Jailing Sheridan for 30 months, Sheriff Alastair Brown said: “I appreciate there have been prior stressors that led you to do this.
“If there’s a way of dealing with this apart from custody I’ll give it a try, but you have done it before and that changes everything.”
Sheridan was also placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.
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