Child porn man who fled to Bulgaria is jailed

A PERVERT who fled to Bulgaria after his cleaner found indecent photos of young girls on his computer has been jailed for 33 months.

George States - who described himself as a £50,000 a year geographic information systems consultant - said “oops” after his secret was revealed, said advocate depute Susanne Tanner.

The prosecutor told how the astonished cleaner went to police and, with the help of a Polish interpreter, told them what she had seen in the flat in Leith, Edinburgh.

“The accused’s Toshiba lap-top computer, which was situated on the right hand side of the room on a desk, was switched on and was displaying a slide show of images,” said Ms Tanner.

The cleaner saw four photos of girls aged about nine or ten “posing in an inappropriate manner,” the High Court in Edinburgh heard.

Police returned to the flat in Iona Street with a search warrant and seized computer equipment which was handed to experts.

They found a total of 265,242 still images and 1233 video clips - almost all of them at the lower end of the scale of depravity.

States, 67, appeared in court in July 2009 and was released on bail.

He failed to attend a court hearing the following March and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

The court heard that in spite of an order to surrender his passport, which had been a condition of bail, father-of-three States was traced to Bulgaria.

Solicitor advocate Robbie Burnett, defending, said: “Clearly he wanted to avoid the consequences of this matter. He chose Bulgaia because the cost of living is very low.”

Mr Burnett said the images had been downloaded for States’ own use. “There is no suggestion of any commercial gain, no suggestion of any distribution.”

Judge Lord Turnbull told States today that because of the high number of images, prison was unavoidable - but he could take into account his good work record and lack of previous convictions.

States was arrested in Bulgaria last August 12 and brought back to Scotland three weeks later.

He appeared from custody and admitted making indecent photos or pseudo-photos between December 2007 and July 2009.

He also pleaded guilty to a charge of jumping bail.