Kelvinbridge man caught with 700,000 indecent images of children jailed

A man with a “titanic addiction” to pornography who was caught with more than 700,000 indecent images of children has been jailed for two years.

63 year-old Mark Leese downloaded millions of pornographic images over a 14-year-period including hundreds of thousands of them sick images of children.

He was snared with his vile haul of pictures and videos when officers swooped on his Kelvinbridge home last year.

Leese pled guilty to downloading and possessing indecent images of children between July 2003 and September 2017 at his home.

Sheriff Neil Mackinnon told Leese: “The seriousness of this matter means only a custodial disposal is appropriate.”

He was also put on the sex offenders register for 10 years.

The court previously heard a search warrant was granted for Leese’s home and police raided it at 7.45am.

Procurator fiscal depute Mhairi Alexander said: “The accused and his wife were found within.

“Officers commenced a systematic search of the property and recovered a number of hard drives which were then sent for initial examination.

“Officers from the cybercrime unit recovered category A and C indecent from the accused’s devices and he was detained and taken to Stewart Street police station.”

Images are divided into categories A, B and C, with A being the most serious and C being at the lowest end.

Of the 692,833 indecent pictures of children Leese had on his devices, 1,726 were level A and there were 1,497 level A of the 21,512 videos discovered.

Miss Alexander added: “The accused later provided a no comment interview, but for advising he was the owner of the hard drives that were recovered and that the images do not belong to his wife.”

Defence lawyer Terry Gallanagh said Leese “had not made specific searches for the type of images that brings him to court”, although became aware of them and it didn’t stop him.

He said: "He has a titanic addiction to pornography, and the quantity of images downloaded is perhaps as high as you would have ever seen and for that I can say he is truly sorry."

Mr Gallanagh added that Leese "became aware" of the illegal images but it didn’t stop him, and described his client as downloading a “gargantuan amount” of pornography.