A teenage pervert who was in the middle of downloading sick child images when police raided his home has dodged a prison sentence.
The 17-year-old, who cannot be named because of his age, had been accessing hundreds of indecent images and videos of children since the age of 12, Dundee Sheriff Court heard.
He was placed on supervision along with a conduct requirement after previously pleading guilty to downloading the vile stash from an address in Letham.
Some of the material uncovered was at the highest level of depravity.
Fiscal depute Eilidh Robertson said police obtained a search warrant for the teenager’s home where they found him and his father.
A laptop was seized and a preview examination found indecent images of children.
The first offender, who has been diagnosed with autism, was then arrested.
“A full examination found three laptops that were using file-to-file sharing software,” Ms Robertson told the court.
“These had been used to download most of the material.
“One of the laptops was in the middle of downloading one of the files when it was seized by police.”
Hundreds of images and videos were recovered across the devices and Sheriff Tom Hughes was told they had been downloaded since 2015 when he would have been 12 years old.
The teen, of Lochgelly, pleaded guilty to taking or permitting to be taken indecent or pseudo photographs of children between April 5 2015 and September 24 last year.
Sheriff Hughes placed the teenager on supervision for three years as well as a stringent conduct requirement.
He was also placed on the sex offenders register for the same period.
