Child porn collector is jailed

AN AVID collector of child porn was jailed for two and a half years today after being caught with almost half a million sick photos and movie clips.

A court heard that the raid on Brian Porter’s Edinburgh home led to the biggest ever seizure of indecent material by Lothian and Borders Police.

Shocked officers reported: “It would be impossible to try to describe in detail a collection as large as this, suffice it to say that the material covers every conceivable indecent image that one can imagine.

“The collection includes babies up to teenagers, both male and female, and being subjected to all types of abuse.”

The sick pictures were stored on Porter’s computer - alongside innocent family photos, the court heard.

Porter tried to claim that he was logging on in an attempt to wipe the pornography off the internet - but found he was unable to destroy the pictures.

Solicitor advocate David Taylor, defending, said the social worker and psychologist preparing the background reports in the case didn’t believe him.

And, sentencing Porter at the High Court in Edinburgh, judge Lord Brodie said he shared their “skeptical approach”.

The judge told Porter that anyone down-loading this vile material was contributing to it being put on the internet and, so, encouraging atrocious child abuse.

Advocate depute Alastair Carmichael, prosecuting described how fanatical Porter, 53, had organised and catalogued his collection, amassed over ten years.

“The ways in which those images had been stored and organised into a collection demonstrate that this was a deliberate course of making and collecting of indecent images of children.

“There are many examples of parts of the collection being put together in folders over time and the contents of those collections being organised alphabetically,” said Mr Carmichael.

The court heard that police computer experts examined two computer systems and five external storage devices. Some of the images were also stored on CDs.

They found 466,684 photos and 3630 movies. More than 5000 of the stills and 35 of the movie clips showed the worst kinds of sexual abuse.

The experts found that Porter’s collection had been down-loaded between November 2001 and June 2011.

“In order to produce this size of a collection the accused must have spent an average of several hours a day involved in this activity,” said Mr Carmichael.

“This is the largest single recovery of indecent images that has been made so far by Lothian and Borders Police.”

Father-of-two Porter - who lived alone at Craigentinny Road - came to court in a wheelchair to admit a charge of taking or permitting to be taken indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children.

The court heard he had suffered from a congenital physical handicap since birth which had resulted in the amputation of his right leg ten years ago.

Mr Taylor, pleading for leniency, said Porter’s medical problems would make a prison sentence more difficult for him.

“I think I could summarise it this way. For Porter any time is hard time.”

The lawyer also said Porter had been abused as a child and said he had not appreciated that what he was doing would lead to more child abuse.