A former supermarket photo shop assistant who was found with more than 14,000 indecent images and videos of children, collected over a six-year period, has been jailed for 240 days.
First offender Neil McGibbon, 24, of Evershed Drive, Dunfermline, admitted having the images in his possession at his home address between January 1 2007 and May 27 2013.
Cupar Sheriff Court previously heard that McGibbon, a former photo shop assistant at an Asda supermarket, was apprehended by police in relation to the offence in May 2013.
Following a search of his bedroom, three media-enabled devices were retained.
At the time McGibbon said he knew they were illegal and had stumbled across them while looking for adult pornography.
The majority of images featured girls aged between 10 and 12.
In total 13,813 indecent images were discovered and 306 indecent films, the majority of which were at level one of the Copine scale. However, there were 171 moving images at level four, and six at level five.
Of the still images discovered, 1,106 were level four and 97 were level five.
McGibbon’s defence solicitor Susan Gibson he was “genuinely disgusted” at his behaviour.
“He is an immature, young man lacking in self-confidence and socially awkward and is absolutely terrified of going to prison.”
Ms Gibson added McGibbon had sought help with an organisation called Stop It Now as well as a sexual psychotherapist.
“A prison sentence could destroy him and destroy all the progress he has made,” she said.
Sheriff Charles Macnair said there could be no alternative to custody.
Addressing McGibbon he said: “Over a period of six years you downloaded indecent images of children on a number of devices.
“These are offences involving real victims … and this is not a small number of images it is a very significant number.”
Sheriff Macnair also imposed a two-year extended supervision sentence upon McGibbon’s release from prison, placed him on the sex offenders register for 10 years and imposed a 10-year sexual offences protection order preventing him from accessing the Internet anonymously, deleting his history of internet browsing, obtaining software to delete files from electronic devices or using a browser that has no history tracker.
McGibbon was told he must also allow any police constable access to any of his electronic devices upon request and provide the Chief Constable of Police Scotland with IP addresses of all electronic devices he uses in the future.
An Asda spokeswoman confirmed McGibbon left the company at the time of his arrest.