A SICK paedophile who downloaded tens of thousands of images of youngsters being sexually abused narrowly escaped a prison sentence yesterday (Thursday).

Alexander Dickson, who now lives at an address in Inverkeithing, had a prior historic conviction for sexual offending but was instead given a community sentence with three years' supervision, a strict conduct requirement and punishment of 200 hours of unpaid work.

Passing sentence, Sheriff Peter Hammond told the 40-year-old pervert that it was in the public interest to try to divert him from committing sexual crimes in the future.

He said: "You have pled guilty to a very serious offence of possessing a large number of indecent images of children on your computer equipment and you have a a previous record of sexual offending, albeit at sumary level and more than 20 years ago.

"You are well within the range where it's open to the court to make a custodial disposal, which is the most obvious outcome.

"I take into account what's been said on your behalf and the social worker's observations regarding the scope to divert you from this course of offending."

"However, you have come very, very close to the imposition of a custodial sentence."

The sheriff said the community payback order’s various requirements were intended to make demands on the accused's character and time and were designed to try to rehabilitate him from further offending.

The sheriff warned Dickson that if he failed to carry out the unpaid work or abide by the strict conduct requirements, he faced being brought back to court and sentenced to imprisonment.

“They are not easy options,” he added.

He made Dickson subject to strict conditions which include a ban on unauthorised contact with children under 16, allowing spot checks of any electronic devices capable of downloading or sending texts, photographs or videos and only staying at addresses approved in advance by social workers.

Livingston Sheriff Court was told that Dickson had moved out of his parents’ West Lothian home after living with them for 20 years following his arrest.

He admitted he had been downloading vile images and videos for almost a decade, from April 5, 2011, until police raided his father’s home in West Hall Road, Broxburn, West Lothian, on February 17, 2021.

Earlier, the paedophile pleaded guilty to possessing indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of children.

The court was told that Police Scotland received intelligence in February 2021 that there could be indecent images of children at Dickson’s then address.

A search warrant was granted by a sheriff on February 12 and police officers executed the search warrant on February 17. Dickson had already left for work and his father, Robert, who was alone in the house, let them in.

Officers seized a number of items of electronic equipment which contained indecent images.

On a laptop belonging to the accused, they found 3,000 images of females between eight and 16.

The majority were in category C – showing youngsters posing in a sexual way – but a number of category A and B images showing child rape and serious sexual abuse were also found.

The photographs were dated from September 21, 2015, to February 13, 2021, and were all accessible on the device.

The second item seized was a USB storage stick which contained 77 indecent images of children in category A, 22 in category B, and 520 still images and a video film in category C.

A further 20,000 images were uncategorised but all featured females aged between three and 15 and had been made between April 15 and June 27, 2021. Again, all were accessible to the user of the device.

When police arrested the accused and seized his mobile phone, the device was found to contain a few category C images and a further 28,000 photographs still to be graded.

The images found in a folder on the handset dated July 12, 2020, were of females aged approximately 12 posing sexually.

Stuart Peebles, defending, said Dickson accepted the charges he had admitted were serious but because he had an excellent work record, a custody sentence could just be avoided.

He commented: “He’s clearly a man who’s a hard-working individual. He has a good job and an excellent reference from his employer.”