Cumbernauld paedophile jailed over 223k images

Greig Woods leaving Airdrie Sheriff Court. Picture: Alex Dowdalls

Greig Woods, from Cumbernauld, downloaded 223,207 indecent images of children on hard drives, discs and laptops, which were seized in a dawn raid by vice squad detectives.

An examination by forensic computer experts found several of the most extreme category of child porn images, including one of a pre-teenage girl “bound and gagged”.

Woods, 35, of Battlefield, pled guilty last month at Airdrie Sheriff Court to taking, or permitting to be taken or making indecent photographs of children at an address in Condorrat, Lanarkshire, between August 2008 and November 2012.

Fiscal depute Adam Roberts said: “Acting on intelligence received, police obtained a search warrant and went to Woods’s home on 16 November 2012.

“A systematic search was carried out and officers seized a black mini-tower, a Western digital hard drive, a Samsung laptop and dongle, a quantity of discs and another Western hard drive.

“Woods was arrested and taken to Coatbridge police office. Initial examination of the computer equipment seized showed up indecent images of children. He was interviewed and made no comment or reply to caution and charge.”

The court heard that one hard drive was found to contain 103,624 images, another had 64,547 and a third 1,247.

The Samsung laptop contained a further 1,936 images, while the discs revealed 1,535 images and the final hard drive showed up 50,030 images.

The court also heard that 19 of the images found were in the worst possible category and there were also more than 300 moving images found throughout the computer devices.

Defence lawyer Colin Dunipace said: “He has since contacted a firm called Stop it Now, a national organisation against child sex abuse. He attended them for assessment, but was found not to be suitable for their programme.

“He is a very vulnerable individual who will find it difficult to cope with prison.

“As a result of this he has lost his job, lost his home and has been left with debts of £16,000. He is a very lonely and isolated figure.”

Sentencing Woods, who was put on the sex offenders’ register for ten years, Sheriff Frank Pieri told him: “A couple of factors mean I can only deal with this by way of custody: first of all the huge number of images – almost a quarter of a million – and secondly the significant number of the highest-level category images.

“I have reduced the sentence from 18 months because of your early plea.”