Jail for Inverness man who had vile images of children
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A man who downloaded vile images of babies and young children being sexually abused claimed he did it to try and trap paedophiles – but later changed his story.
Nicholas Ferguson (31) admitted to social workers he had "a predilection" for child porn.
After Ferguson was arrested and released on bail, he continued to search for obscene images.
At Inverness Sheriff Court today, Ferguson was jailed for a total of 28 months for his collection of still photographs and videos.
Sheriff Sara Matheson said that only a custodial sentence was appropriate for the first offender.
Ferguson had previously admitted several offences and sentence was deferred for a background report.
Sheriff Matheson heard that Ferguson sent screenshots from an obscene video to an Elgin man he suspected could be an abuser.
She described this as "disgusting".
The Moray man then reported it to police after being engaged in sexually explicit online conversations with Ferguson in February 2019. Ferguson also claimed to have had sex with children as young as five.
Fiscal depute David Morton said suspicion fell on Ferguson and was traced to an address in Dalneigh and a laptop and phone were seized. The phone had the same number as used to contact the Elgin man.
Mr Morton said that Ferguson told officers during the police interview he was "hoping to try and lure people into admitting things in the hope of finding predators".
Ferguson was arrested and charged but released on bail in April 2019. On August 30, 2019, Ferguson was filmed on CCTV in a city centre takeaway, physically assaulting a woman's son by pushing him to the side of the head.
This was also in breach of a special bail condition not to have any contact with children aged under 16. Another was not to possess an internet-enabled device.
A further mobile phone was taken by the police and during 2019, his electronic equipment was analysed.
Experts discovered he was using social media to send or receive indecent videos and images.
A total of 494 images were recovered from one device, with a third of them being of the most obscene type.
Also 165 videos were found and most of them were in the same category.
The court heard Ferguson's cloud storage of images and videos depicted extreme sexual activity involving babies and young children.
Further interrogation of another device belonging to Ferguson, and obtained in an Inverness shop, discovered 129 images and 53 videos created while he was on bail between September 2019 and December 2019.
Again most were in the highest category of depravity, involving boys aged between two and 10.
Ferguson, of St Ninian's Drive, Inverness pleaded guilty to assault, two breaches of bail, downloading, possessing and distributing indecent images and making an indecent communication.
Defence solicitor Shahid Latif said his client "was diagnosed with a complex post traumatic stress disorder linked to his early childhood and adolescence.
"Following that his life spiralled out of control, punctuated by episodes of self-loathing, and he has been on a long period of self-destruction."
He asked the Sheriff to balance punishment against the need for rehabilitation.
Ferguson was also placed on the Sex Offender's Register for 10 years.
