IT consultant caught with massive hoard of child porn

AN IT consultant was found with a massive hidden hoard of more than half a million child pornography pictures after a friend went to tidy up his flat in the Capital as a favour, a court heard.

And when forensic experts analysed Yeoman Smith's computers they discovered footage of him carrying out a sex act in front of a five-year-old girl.

The High Court in Edinburgh today heard that a total of 581,649 still images and 1884 moving indecent images of children were recovered on equipment and discs after a search of Smith's home.

Advocate depute Gillian More told the court that some of the images featured children who were as young as a few months old.

Self-employed information technology expert Smith, 35, admitted possessing the indecent photos of children at his home in Livingstone Place, on June 24 last year.

He also plead guilty to indecent behaviour towards the little girl by performing a sex act in her presence and videoing it on August 13 in 2009 in Penicuik.

The advocate depute said that in May last year Smith had returned to Shetland for his mother's funeral and to deal with various matters.

A downstairs neighbour contacted a friend of Smith's because of concerns over a potential water leak from the unoccupied flat. The friend got a set of keys and went into Smith's home to turn off the water.

The prosecutor said: "He noticed the flat to be very untidy and on June 21 decided to go to the accused's flat in advance of his return from Shetland to clean and tidy it for him."

He found a children's clothing catalogue beside Smith's bed.

"He became very uneasy and then remembered the accused showing him a concealed cupboard that was situated in the ceiling of the hall of the property, in which he had seen a bag containing computer discs," she said.

The friend had suspected it contained adult pornography but decided to check and found his fears were confirmed when he discovered images of young children.

He later contacted police and handed over discs that had come from Smith's cache. Police went to the flat with a search warrant and found lap tops, discs and other storage media as well as printed indecent images of children.

Defence solicitor advocate Duncan Hughes said that first offender Smith had fully co-operated with police.

He said Smith had earlier been allowed bail with conditions that he had no unsupervised contact with children under 16, did not use the internet and regularly attended at a police station.

Mr Hughes asked Lord Uist to allow Smith to remain at liberty while reports were prepared in his case ahead of sentencing.

But the judge remanded him in custody after telling him: "You have pled guilty to two very serious offences of a sexual nature."

Lord Uist also placed Smith on the sex offenders' register and continued the case for background and psychiatric reports.