Scots NHS worker guilty of child porn avoids jail

AN NHS worker caught with an enormous child porn stash that included twisted pictures of an hours old baby with it’s umbilical cord still attached being abused today avoided a jail term.
The case against Scott Wallace was heard at Dundee Sheriff Court. Picture: Allan MilliganThe case against Scott Wallace was heard at Dundee Sheriff Court. Picture: Allan Milligan
The case against Scott Wallace was heard at Dundee Sheriff Court. Picture: Allan Milligan

Scott Wallace - an assistant technical officer with NHS Tayside who worked delivering medication to wards, including those treating kids - was snared after a raid on the home he shared with his mother in Dundee last June.

Dundee Sheriff Court heard officers found a vast pornography collection totaling almost a million images - most of it adult.

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But included in it were more than 8,000 indecent images of children as well as more than 63,000 “concerning” - though not illegal - pictures of children.

The court was told that more than ten hours of twisted videos of children being abused were also found.

Fiscal depute Vicky Bell told the court that one image depicted “a newborn baby, one with hospital name tags still on its ankle and a clip on the umbilical cord”.

She added: “Another showed an adult male having tied up, gagged and penetrated an infant.”

The prosecutor said showed a male carrying out a series of sex acts on a two month old child.

Miss Bell added: “On a hard drive there were 5,861 indecent images of children, and 2,720 on another computer.

“That was from a total of 370,000 total pornographic images, mostly adult, on the hard drive and 574,000 on the computer.

“The age range was from newborn to 14 years old and both males and females were depicted.

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“The accused had been accessing a website that allowed the user to download ‘torrents’ and had been searching terms such as ‘preteen hardcore’.

“When interviewed by police he said: ‘Deep apologies, curiosity got the better of me’.”

Wallace, 33, of Dundee, pleaded guilty on indictment to a charge of possessing indecent images of children between December 2009 and June 2014.

Defence solicitor Nicola Brown said: “This is a man who was working and subsequently lost his job.

“Around 0.56 percent of the footage found on his computers was illegal.

“He’s a man who wishes help and would co-operate fully with the preparation of reports.”

Sheriff George Way - who remanded Wallace in custody for a month following his last court appearance - today imposed a community payback order with supervision for three years.

He also ordered Wallace to undergo a sex offender treatment programme and banned him from accessing the internet without prior approval, banned him from contact with children and ordered him to live only in approved accommodation.

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Wallace will also be on an electronic tag confining him to his home for three months between 7pm and 7am and will be on the sex offender’s register for three years.

Sheriff Way said: “Be very, very clear - if there were any question of the sharing or distribution of any of this material then prison would be the only possible punishment.

“You are also fortunate that the most severe images were of a small number.

“In order that the public can be safe and that you are appropriately punished there will be the most severe possible community disposal.”

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