Perv was sharing pics

A man caught with thousands of child abuse images had been sharing the disgusting material with another paedophile.

Allan Mooney was arrested after an early morning police raid on his home in Mcneil Street, Larkhall.

As well as finding images on a phone and a computer, officers discovered more than 2000 messages between Mooney and others who shared his perverted interest.

Mooney, 37, now of Bridgeton, Glasgow, appeared at Hamilton Sheriff Court on Friday.

He admitted possession and sharing of indecent images.

Jennifer Mccabe, prosecuting, said police conducted a“systematic” search of the house around 7am on March 27 last year.

On the computer and phone they found 8815 images. Although most were described as Category C, 316 were in Category A, assessed as being the most depraved type.

Ms Mccabe told the court:“the images featured both male and female children, thought to be aged between four and 14 years.

“Cybercrime officers also recovered 2113 messages representing 30 conversations between the accused and others.

“These were sexually explicit with a clear focus on child abuse and the sharing of images.

“On the accused’s iphone it could be seen that the accused had sent eight Category C images to another user on one day.

“These were accompanied by messages such as‘mmm, she’s lovely’ and‘wow, that’s sexy’.”

Sheriff Ray Small called for a criminal justice social work report and a risk assessment.

Sentence on Mooney, who has no previous convictions, was deferred until May and he was put on the sex offenders’ register.