Man jailed over ½m images of ‘atrocious child abuse’

A MAN who was caught with a collection of 470,000 images of child porn was jailed for two years and six months yesterday.

Brian Porter, 53, claimed there had been no sexual motive for downloading the images, and that he had wanted to help clean up the internet. However, a court heard that experts who interviewed him for background reports did not accept his explanation, and a judge said he treated it with scepticism.

The recovery from Porter’s home in Craigentinny Road, Edinburgh, was the largest single seizure of child pornography by Lothian and Borders Police. He had amassed the images over ten years, and it was estimated he must have spent several hours on his computer every day to build up the library.

Jailing Porter at the High Court in Edinburgh, the judge, Lord Brodie, said it was important that he had simply downloaded the material, and had not distributed it. But the judge added: “By downloading this vile material, anyone who does so is contributing to the putting of the material on the internet and the child abuse of an atrocious nature which is recorded in these images.”

Porter will be supervised for three years after his release.