A former Dundee City Council community centre worker has been caught with thousands of indecent child images on his computer.
Colin Spink was found with almost 6,000 still pictures and nearly 1,000 indecent videos when police raided the home he shared with his wife and child.
Spink, who formerly worked for the council as a resource assistant in two community centres, now faces a prison term after admitting downloading the pictures using an online file-sharing site.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard Spink, 49, of Banknowe Drive, Tayport, had gone to some lengths to cover his tracks, downloading file cleaning and shredding software to erase the evidence.
A tip-off received by police in January, however, led officers to his door on April 3.
Depute fiscal Susan Ruta said Spink had later told police he liked looking at twisted pictures of naked girls aged 10 and over but claimed he “didn’t get sexual gratification”.
She added: “Two computer towers, two laptops and a USB drive were recovered from the home.
“At around 11am, the accused was traced at his place of employment at Menzieshill Community Centre and was detained and taken to police HQ.”
The court heard that, during a police interview, Spink admitted having indecent images of children and claimed he was interested only in “soft stuff”.
The fiscal continued: “He said he got no sexual gratification from them it was just something inside him. He admitted looking at the images about once a month and said he looked only at pictures of children over the age of 10, knowing that to be wrong.”
From three of the items seized, 5,773 images of children were recovered, as well as 976 indecent video files of children, all aged between six and 14 and classified by police as level one the lowest category.
File-sharing equipment and software to shred history and documents were also found on these items.
Spink admitted that, between February 10 2012 and April 2 last year, at a property on the Poplars, Dundee, he took or permitted to be taken or made indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of children.
Sheriff George Way deferred sentence until August 12 for reports and released Spink on bail.
A council spokersman said: “This individual no longer works for Dundee City Council.”