High risk sex offender caught with indecent images

A sex offender banned from contact with children has been caught with a fresh collection of indecent images.

Edwin Kirk told police officers his illegal urges had beaten him after they swooped on his home in Perth.

The 56-year-old was made the subject of a Sexual Offences Protection Order (SOPO) in 2016 after then Police Scotland Chief Constable Sir Stephen House branded him dangerous.

He had been jailed after being found with more than 100,000 indecent images of children and hours of video, but the 10-year order was sought to mitigate his threat to the public.

The chief constable detailed Kirk’s obsessions, ranging from interest in children as young as three to an 80-year-old woman from whom he was banned from contact.

The order banned him from contact or communication with children under-16 and from deleting his browser history or disguising internet searches.

During a court appearance in January, he admitted breaching the order by wiping the history on his laptop.

Kirk, a prisoner at Perth, has now pleaded guilty to two additional charges of possessing and making indecent photographs of children at an address in Perth’s Rannoch Road between May 5 and July 19 this year.

Police officers discovered the images after making a regular check on his home.

Forensic examination found web searches for “child sex stories”, together with a small number of indecent images.

Kirk told police officers: “That fact I’ve got illicit images proves this is bigger than I am and I can’t fight it.”

He will be sentenced on February 7.