Man had 14,000 abuse images

A DISGUSTED ex-wife found her estranged husband’s stash of child abuse images and reported him to police.

Richard Smith, 45, was caught weeks after leaving his partner, June, who later found digital images of underage girls.

She called the police, who took computer equipment away from their home in Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, and searched Smith’s property in nearby Burnside – where more images were discovered.

Yesterday at Glasgow Sheriff Court, data analyst Smith, pleaded guilty to downloading 14,382 images between December 2012 and January 2016.

Outside court, his ex-wife – who has a teenage daughter – said: ‘I just thought “I need to report this, these are illegal” when I saw right away they were young girls.’

The court heard the images involved girls between eight and 16 and had been downloaded from internet websites.

Sheriff Sam Cathcart deferred sentence on Smith until next month and continued his bail.