Sentence deferred on child porn social worker

Published on Thursday 2 October 2008 09:55

SENTENCE has been deferred on a social worker caught with child porn on his computer because experts could not agree whether he was sorry for his crime.

Kevin Glancy, 45, worked with children and families in Edinburgh City Council's social work department before he was caught with indecent photographs and video clips of young boys.

Glancy, of Stanley Street, Edinburgh, previously pleaded guilty at Edinburgh Sheriff Court to possessing indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children at his home on March 2.

He was due to be sentenced today but Sheriff Elizabeth Jarvie deferred the matter further after hearing different opinions from social workers and psychologists.

Social workers who interviewed Glancy said he "failed to show any genuine remorse" for what he had done therefore he posed a medium to high risk of re-offending.

But a clinical psychologist who interviewed him at the same time said there was a "very low risk" of committing the same crime again.

Sheriff Jarvie called for more information before sentencing Glancy and told him to return to court later in the month.

She also asked for more information about the distress the children in the video were likely to have suffered.

Police, acting on a tip-off, had searched Glancy's home in March and seized two computers and a laptop.

On them they found 239 images of children, mostly boys aged eight to 14, being abused.

Thirty of the images showed the most severe end of the child abuse scale – level five.

Glancy also had 70 film clips of child pornography stored in his hard drives, showing moderate to severe types of abuse.

When arrested and questioned, he told police he had been viewing child porn on the internet for three years and named a website he used for downloading the illegal images.

Glancy, who lives with his mother and sister, told officers he looked at the websites during his free time.

He has been suspended from work since the offences were discovered and has now been placed on the sex offenders' register.

Eddie Wilson, defending, said: "Its a very serious matter and Mr Glancy knows that. He takes responsibility for the offences."