Paedo cop admits hoarding 5000 child sex abuse images
Most of pervert’s huge laptop stash was in very worst category
A PAEDOPHILE former policeman has pled guilty to hoarding thousands of the worst images of children being abused.
Derek Kennedy, 34, was a serving Police Scotland officer when he began downloading the horrific
BY GORDON CURRIE pictures and videos. His former colleagues caught him with more than 5000 of them when they raided his home last July.
Most of the hoard was defined as Category A – the most serious, and featuring scenes of child rape, bestiality and sadism. Victims included infants.
In all, police found 4707 indecent images and 1118 child porn videos on Kennedy’s phone and two laptop computers at his home in Butters Road, Dundee.
Kennedy admitted downloading the images and using them for sexual gratification, but denied any sexual interest in children.
He claimed he had not downloaded the images intentionally and could not understand why he had kept them. “Something in the back of my mind made me keep them,” he told police.
But the evidence in the case suggested that Kennedy was a dedicated paedophile.
He used peer-to-peer file sharing software to find and obtain images, installed privacy tools on one of his laptops and searched the dark web using Tor, a browser chosen by paedophiles to mask their identity.
Kennedy pled guilty at Dundee Sheriff Court to downloading the images between August 10, 2016 – when he was still a police officer – and last July 16.
Theo Finlay, defending, said his client had a history of mental health problems and had to resign from the police for medical reasons. He is now unemployed.
Sheriff Lorna Drummond put Kennedy on the sex offenders register and bailed him to await sentence after reports.