Pervert spared prison

Childabuseimages

A sex offender who was caught with a vile stash of indecent images of children for a second time has again been spared jail.

Anthony McShane, 29, was snared when cyber crime officers searched his home in Glen Farrar, St Leonards under warrant last May and found 29 movies depicting child sex abuse on his Xbox.

In one of the movies, described by the prosecutor as a “compilation”, female children between the ages of three and eight were being abused by adult males.

The court heard that all the images in the movie were at the most extreme level – Category A – which shows penetrative abuse.

The News reported how the pervert was snared back in 2014 when a police search of his home uncovered over 1200 indecent images of children.

However, despite having images at the most extreme level, McShane was given a community payback order and placed on the sex offenders’ register for three years.

At Hamilton Sheriff Court on Thursday, McShane’s defending agent said his client suffers from ADHD, has been receiving psychiatric assistance and was taking part in the child sexual abuse prevention programme Stop it Now.

He added that McShane was “not seeking to hide behind a mental illness” and had successfully served a three-year probation order.

Sheriff Thomas Millar placed McShane under supervision for three years, put him on the sex offenders’ register for the same period and banned him from accessing the internet outside of the workplace.