Ex Edinburgh Royal Marine commando caught with nearly ONE MILLION child abuse images is jailed

He was previously jailed for secretly filming women undressing at his workplace six years ago

A former Royal Marine commando who was caught with almost one million horrific child abuse images has been jailed and placed on the Sex Offenders' Register for life.

John Sharp, 54, collected the massive amount of indecent images of children over a three year period and stored them on a computer and a mobile phone.

Sharp was jailed for 22 months and placed on the Sex Offenders' Register for 10 years for secretly recording women undressing at his workplace six years ago.

The former Royal Marine commando from Edinburgh was jailed on Tuesday.

Release conditions included police turning up at his home uninvited to check any electronic devices he possessed.

And when officers arrived at his Edinburgh home to check his internet history last October Sharp was said to have “began to shake” when asked to produce his laptop.

He immediately confessed that he had thousands a of child abuse images hidden away in online folders on the computer and on his mobile phone.

Cyber crime officers subsequently searched the two devices and uncovered a total of 922,413 indecent images of children.

Last month Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told Sharp possessed 4927 Category A images - the most depraved end of the spectrum - and a further 5581 at Category B.

He was also found to have 176,905 at Category C and the court heard the computer equipment also held an additional 735,000 pictures of children being abused that had not yet been classified.

Jailed

Sharp pleaded guilty to possessing the huge haul of child abuse pictures when he appeared from custody at the capital court last month.

He returned to the dock for sentencing on Tuesday where Sheriff Kenneth McGowan jailed him for four years.

The sheriff also placed Sharp on the Sex Offenders' Register for an indefinite period.

Previously fiscal depute Susan Dickson said police turned up at Sharp’s home in October last year and when “asked if he had any computers that can access the internet he began to shake”.

Ms Dickson added Sharp then handed over a laptop and a mobile phone to the officers that he admitted contained “thousands of images” on them.

Forensic analysis was carried out on the devices and the hundreds of thousands of images were found hidden away within folders.

Sharp pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children at Wauchope House, Greendykes, Edinburgh, between November 28, 2016 and October 17 last year.

Sharp was caged for 22 months in May 2014 after he had admitted to placing a camera in changing rooms at his workplace in Bruntsfield and recording women undress.

He was also jailed for four years in 2001 for sexually abusing two young girls and possessing child abuse images.

At the time he claimed he had been left traumatised following his service in the Royal Marines and had also witnessed sexual abuse when he was younger.