Paedophile hid abuse images in secret den

COURT: Man jailed after pictures found stashed behind fireplace

A “dangerous and predatory” paedophile built a secret hideaway in his house to store his homemade images of child abuse before distributing them worldwide via the dark web.

Farm worker John Johnstone set up a compartment behind a fireplace at his Angus home so he could keep his equipment hidden.

The 43-year-old took photographs of himself carrying out sex acts and posing next to a sleeping girl. He then put them on paedophile websites and asked others to send similar material to him.

Dundee Sheriff Court heard the secret compartment “was elaborately hidden in a void behind the fireplace in the living room”.

Johnstone, right, of Arbroath, was jailed for 40 months after he admitted a five- year campaign of abuse.

Adark web paedophile who created an elaborate hiding place for his illegal material has been jailed for 40 months after a sheriff called him “a committed user and maker of indecent images of children”.

Fa r m worker John Johnstone built a secret den in his home to store his vile haul of material and used the dark web to distribute it worldwide.

Johnstone bragged to social workers he had done no “actual harm” to the girl because she had been asleep while he was abusing her.

Dundee Sheriff Court heard how Johnstone set up a secret hidden compartment behind a fireplace to store the computer equipment he used to distribute homemade images.

The 43- year- old from Arbroath took photos of himself carrying out sex acts and posing next to a sleeping girl.

He then put them on paedophile sites and asked others to send similar material back to him.

The court heard how he scoured Facebook and other social media to collect more than 400 images of another young girl he had a fixation with.

Fiscal depute Marie Irvine told the court a specialist police unit’s investigation led to Johnstone after discovering home- produced images had been uploaded to the dark web from an Arbroath address.

Referring to the secret compartment, she said: “It was elaborately hidden in a void behind the fireplace in the living room.

“Other than taking apart the fireplace, the only way to access the void was to pivot the hearth section outwards to reveal the void beneath.

“But in order to allow the hearth section to pivot, the rug from the front of the hearth had to be moved and this was held in place by the couch to the left and a unit to the right.

“This was clearly a deliberate attempt to avoid discovery, not only of the devices, but to avoid recovery of the content on the devices.”

John stone admitted sexually assaulting the child and taking photographs of himself carrying out sexual activity in her presence, having and distributing indecent images and hiding material in a bid to defeat the ends of justice. The offences took place in Arbroath between January 1 2015 and July 29 last year.

Detective Chief Inspector Richie Banks, of Police Scotland’s National Child Abuse Investigation Unit, said: “John Johnstone is a dangerous and predatory individual whose levels of hidden criminal activity over a number of years show he was not only a risk to children in Scotland, but worldwide.”

Sheriff Alistair Carmichael jailed him and placed him on the sex offenders register for life yesterday as well as making him the subject of a sexual offences prevention order for five years.

The sheriff said: “You are a committed user and maker of indecent images of children and I see no alternative to a custodial sentence.”

John Johnstone.