Former police officer found with hoard of child abuse images jailed for 12 months

A FORMER police officer caught with thousands of child abuse images after a raid on his home has been jailed.

Derek Kennedy admitted hoarding the depraved videos and images on multiple devices on Buttar’s Road between August 2016 and July last year.

The 34-year-old was jailed at Dundee Sheriff Court for one year and placed on the sex offenders register for the next decade.

Kennedy previously served as a police officer before quitting the force on medical grounds.

It was previously revealed that police searched his house and seized a mobile phone which contained a haul of vile images and videos.

Further discoveries were made on two laptops with Kennedy telling police he did not know why he had them.

Prosecutor Eilidh Robertson told the court: “He admitted he had downloaded indecent images but said ‘something in the back of my mind made me keep them.’

“He said he did not know how he came to download them in the first place.”

Kennedy, a man with no previous convictions, had transferred many of the images between his devices and had used filesharing software to download and search for them.

In total, Kennedy was found with 1,118 indecent videos and 4,707 images.

Ms Robertson revealed that 810 of the videos and 560 of the images were classed as category A, the highest-level of depravity.

She said the images and videos predominantly featured female children being abused. The videos lasted for a total of 18 hours.

Some of the haul was said to have involved animals and sadism.

Kennedy pleaded guilty on indictment to taking, permitting to be taken or making indecent images of children on Buttar’s Road between August 2016 and July last year.

Sheriff Lorna Drummond QC jailed Kennedy for 12 months and placed him on the sex offenders register for 10 years.

Derek Kennedy