The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Extended jail time likely for sex offender
An “evil” serial sex offender faces an extended spell behind bars after his latest offence. Craig Bence engaged in explicit chats with other paedophiles using the messaging service Kik and was caught with almost 1,000 obscene images of children.
The 36-year-old, of Perth Prison, who once changed his name and continued his offending, was previously jailed for three years for a similar offence.
At Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, Sheriff Grant McCulloch told him: “You’re an evil man.
“You are in custody, where you deserve to be, and no doubt you will receive a custodial sentence but I’m considering an extended sentence.”
Fiscal depute Ronnie Hay told the court: “At 8.20am on January 21 officers executed a search warrant at a Kirkcaldy flat.
“The accused, traced within the flat, was alone. He was searched and an iPod was recovered from his pocket.
“Without prompting he said ‘there’s stuff on that’.”
Mr Hay said the iPod was later found to contain 270 images and 140 videos at category A, the worst kind.
A further 128 images and 27 videos were at category B, and 738 images and six videos at category C.
The images were “predominantly, but not exclusively” of females.
Bence was also found to have used Kik to hold obscene conversations.
He admitted taking indecent photos of children at an address in Kirkcaldy between October 3 2020 and January 16.
He further admitted distributing images from the same address between December 1 and January 16.
Bence also pled guilty to acting in a threatening and abusive manner on
numerous occasions between November 29 and December 11 2020 by using Kik to discuss and encourage the rape and sexual abuse of children.
Sentence was deferred until next month.
In 2017 Bence – then calling himself Craig Robertson and living in Leuchars – was jailed for three years after he was
caught with “violent” child abuse images which he distributed to others.
He was also placed on the sex offenders register for an indefinite period.
On that occasion he was caught with more than 700 images and videos, mainly of girls under 15.
He was also jailed in 2010 for an identical offence.