A Scottish academic has been jailed for 10 months after being caught with a library of 60,000 child abuse images of girls aged as young as 10.
Dr Joseph Crawford was previously a respected member of the school of geography at St Andrews University. He left in 2017.
He switched to Sheffield University after he was caught but continued to travel back to Scotland.
He amassed the collection over seven years, and kept it on a laptop and four USB sticks which were seized when police raided his home in Falkirk.
Married Crawford, 49, of Rosebank Avenue, pled guilty at Falkirk Sheriff Court to possessing and downloading the material at his home between November 2010 and April 30 2018.
Detective inspector Richard Banks, of Police Scotland’s national child abuse investigation unit, said: “Crawford’s online behaviour was deplorable with no thought of the young victims depicted in the images and videos he was viewing.”
