April 2017 Forth dad trawled web for “depraved” images of children While his wife and three children slept at night, Paul Robertson trawled the internet for child sexual abuse images amassing a collection of 377 moving and still indecent images. That catalogue of obscene photos and films was uncovered by a police raid on his then home in Forth, Lanark Sheriff Court heard last Thursday. Robertson, 49, now of an address in Lanark, appeared on indictment for deferred sentence for collecting and possessing child abuse images over almost a decade, from November 2005 until his arrest in April 2015. The reason for the delay in him facing justice was explained in court by depute fiscal Ziad Hassan. He said that Robertson had failed to appear in court for an earlier hearing of his case in March last year, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. The authorities then lost track of him until police arrested him on February 1 this year, catching him in the act of breaching one of his original bail conditions by viewing the internet. However, in that instance, no obscene images were found on his computer. The court had earlier heard from the fiscal that, in April 2015, after receiving information that a device registered to Robertson’s home in Forth had been used to download indecent images of children, police had gone there with a search warrant at 7am. There was no one in, but the door was unlocked, and the officers, some from Police Scotland’s cybercrime unit, found a hard drive and a Dell laptop in the living room with the indecent images of children on it. He was later interviewed by police and charged. Addressing Robertson directly, the sheriff described his actions and attitude to his offence as “utterly, utterly despicable” and said he was guilty of “dehumanising” the children in the images. “Those who seek out this depraved imagery are the equivalent of child abusers,” she said. She put Robertson on the sex offenders’ register for five years and gave him a three-year community payback order including 200 hours of unpaid work and a 7pm-to-7am home curfew for four months. March 2017 Forth man caught with child abuse images is remanded in custody A father of three was remanded in custody again at Lanark Sheriff Court last Wednesday after he admitted possessing child sexual abuse images Some of the file names found on his devices were indicative of children being abused, the court heard. Paul Robertson, 49, appeared on indictment and admitted that, between November 2005 and April 2015, he made photos or pseudo-photos of children and that he had in his possession indecent photos or pseudo photos of children. He also admitted failing to appear at Lanark Sheriff Court on March 8 last year. As a result of that, a warrant was issued for his arrest, and when he appeared from custody in February this year, bail was refused. Robertson had no previous convictions, the court heard. Depute fiscal Ziad Hassan said that in April 2015, after receiving information that a device registered to Robertson’s home in Forth had been used to download indecent images of children, police had gone there with a search warrant at 7am one day. There was no one in, but the door was unlocked, and the officers, some from the cybercrime unit, found a hard drive and a Dell laptop in its living room with indecent images of children on. Officers discovered that Robertson was employed by BT, and he was contacted through his work. After returning home at the request of the officers searching the property, he confirmed the hard drive and laptop were his. “The cybercrime officers confirmed the presence of some 350 videos containing indecent images of children,” Mr Hassan told the court. Robertson, a father of three children, was the sole user of the computer, he said. “His wife did not access the computer and had no knowledge of indecent images of children being downloaded,” added Mr Hassan. An examination of the computer found a total of 377 still and moving indecent images, and its search history revealed that categories Robertson had looked for included Lolitas and PTHC, short for pre-teen hard core. Mr Hassan said that the search terms were indicative of child abuse, one relating to a girl of four and one to an eight-year-old, with others involving babies. File names indicative of child abuse were recovered from the hard drive. Sentence was deferred for reports, but Robertson was warned that he would be placed on the sex offenders’ register.