News / Back behind bars for child porn “addiction”
A COMPUTER consultant who was freed early from a jail sentence after being arrested in Shetland for amassing a huge hoard of child pornography was sent back to prison on Thursday for 15 months after downloading and possessing more indecent images.
Yeoman Smith was released on licence with conditions that he did not access the internet unless supervised and with prior authorisation.
But the judge who jailed him for his original crime said he had “blatantly broken” the conditions by obtaining computer equipment and committing the same sort of offence.
Lord Uist told Smith at the High Court in Edinburgh: “I am in no doubt it is appropriate that I should order you be returned to prison to serve part of the sentence which I imposed on you.”
Defence solicitor advocate Sandra Walker said: “He has described his desire to view child pornography as an addiction.”
The 37 year old was jailed for 25 months in 2011 and put under supervision for a further three years after a friend found child pornography at his flat in Livingstone Place, in Edinburgh.
He had built up a cache of more than half a million still images and in excess of 1800 pieces of footage.
He had gone to Shetland for a family funeral when a downstairs neighbour contacted a friend of his over concerns about a potential water leak from his flat.
The friend went to turn off the water but later found images of children performing sex acts on adult males and contacted police.
Smith was released from prison in April last year and went to stay with relatives in the West Lothian village of Mid Calder but by August was committing similar offences.
A sheriff at Livingston will sentence him for the latest offences.
Dave Finlay
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