The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Brexit could hit north hard
Businesses in the Highlands could be hit harder by Brexit than anywhere else in the country, according to a new study.
A survey by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has found that 41% of employers in the region have EU staff among their workforce.
The proportion dwarfs the Scotland-wide figure of 26%. Among tourism and leisure firms in the Highlands, the number employing workers from the rest of the EU rose to 45%.
Last night, business bosses in the north confirmed that Brexit had created major uncertainty.
Alasdair Hughson, director of Dingwall-based Keltic Seafare, said about a quarter of his 24 staff were non-UK EU citizens.
“We would be really struggling without them,” he said.
Thomas Machnik has been running commercial cleaning business Justom Ltd in Inverness since moving from Poland, and employs up to 35 non-UK EU workers at peak times. He said: “More often than not, An Oban man caught with hundreds of thousands of child porn images had so many illicit pictures police were unable to categorise them all.
After uncovering Lliam Martin’s cache of more than 750,000 files, officers worked for eight months sorting and categorising the horrifying images, tens of thousands of them at the worst level. our staff are from countries such as Poland and Latvia. What will happen when we leave the EU?”
The FSB believes the figures prove how vital it is for Scottish businesses that EU workers are given the right to remain in the country after the UK leaves the EU.
David Richardson, FSB development manager for the Highlands and Islands, said: “Highlands businesses are genuinely worried about where their future workforce is going to come from post-Brexit, given they feature in 41% of workplaces in the region.”
But they had to give up on almost 600,000 of them because they reached the legal timebar for dealing with the case.
Last night charities described the crime as “appalling” and “horrific”, while one politician questioned why the case did not go to the High Court.
The 34-year-old appeared at Oban Sheriff Court yesterday and admitted possessing indecent photographs of children at Dungallan Terrace between November 2008 and June last year.
Fiscal Eoin McGinty said: “Simply because of the sheer number of images, those that were tasked with categorising them had to draw a line given the impending timebar. Two people were working full-time between June and March on this single case.”
He said that in total there were 168,800 still images and 40 moving images. These were discovered on SD cards, a Mac Book laptop and a computer unit.
Mr McGinty added: “There was a substantial tranche that was left. There were a further 597,000 images that have not been looked at and categorised. They are suspected indecent images of children.”
Martin’s home was raided on June 21 after police received “sensitive intelligence”.
Mr McGinty said: “Police attended the accused’s home address at 8.40am. He lived with his parents.
“Police spoke to the accused who at that stage was in his bed. He handed the police five SD storage cards.”
The court heard that Martin told police one of the cards contained “porn of all ages”.
Mr McGinty said Martin had created files with names such as “10 year old girls in changing room,” “Angels,” and “Adult beach girls topless”.
Sheriff Ruth Anderson asked: “Are we talking about adults?”
He replied: “No we are talking about children. I unfortunately had a look, some of them are babies. Some are older.”
The sheriff deferred sentence until May 23 for a background report to be prepared.
She told Martin: “While all sentencing options are open, you can expect a custodial sentence.”
He was placed on the sex offenders register.
Douglas Ross, shadow cabinet secretary for justice, said: “This is an extraordinary number of images containing child abuse and I’m surprised it wasn’t dealt with at the highest level of the court in Scotland.
“I would hope the punishment does justice to the number of sickening images this individual had.”
A spokesman for NSPCC Scotland said: “Every single one is an individual crime scene involving a real child who will need considerable support to recover from the abuse inflicted on them and who could still be in danger today.”
The Crown Office was not able to comment last night.
“Every single one is a crime scene involving a real child”