Court hears of photo link to abuse suspect

Published on Tuesday 24 March 2009 21:03

IT WAS "highly likely" the same camera was used to take photographs of a man on trial for paedophile offences and the abusing of an infant boy, an expert witness told a High Court jury in Edinburgh yesterday.

Professor Hany Farid, 43, of New Hampshire, US, who has helped the CIA and FBI with evidence on computer sciences, said he had been contacted by Lothian and Borders Police last year and asked to analyse four digital camera images.

One was a portrait of Neil Strachan, 41, and two others were shots of his body which he had sent to his work as a picture sick-note when he suffered from shingles. The fourth was an image of an 18-month-old boy being sexually abused.

Strachan and Colin Slaven, 23, deny abusing the boy at their flat in Edinburgh.

They and six others also deny possessing and distributing indecent images of children.

The trial continues.