Rapist jailed over indecent images

A CONVICTED rapist who was caught with thousands of indecent images of children has been jailed for five years.

Thomas Hazlett, 71, was out on licence when police raided his Colinton home and found the pictures on his computer.

He was initially handed a 12-month sentence earlier this week, but today at the High Court in Edinburgh a sheriff extended that to offer “as much protection as possible to the public”.

Hazlett, now a prisoner at Saughton, had already admitted to being in the possession of the images at his Redford Road home, which were described as being at the lower end of the paedophile scale.

Hazlett has two convictions for rape. In 1997, he was jailed for eight years for rape and four years into that sentence he was convicted of the previous rape of two young sisters and sentenced to 12 years.