Pervert behind bars after record haul of child porn

A court heard that the raid on Brian Porter’s Edinburgh home led to the biggest ever seizure of indecent material by Lothian and Borders Police.

Shocked officers who examined his computer equipment reported: “It would be impossible to try to describe in detail a collection as large as this, suffice it to say that the material covers every conceivable indecent image that one can imagine.

“The collection includes babies up to teenagers, both male and female, and being subjected to all types of abuse.”

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Porter had changed his image dramatically since a picture taken of him in 2009, and appeared at court with ginger hair and a beard.

Advocate depute Alastair Carmichael, prosecuting, told the High Court in Edinburgh that Porter’s collection included girls being tied up and raped and having sex with animals.

The prosecutor described how fanatical Porter, 53, had organised and catalogued his collection, amassed over ten years.

“The ways in which those images had been stored and organised into a collection demonstrate that this was a deliberate course of making and collecting indecent images of children.

“There are many examples of parts of the collection being put together in folders over time and the contents of those collections being organised alphabetically,” said Mr Carmichael.

The court heard that police computer experts examined two computer systems and five external storage devices. Some of the images were also stored on CDs.

They found 466,684 photos and 3630 movies. More than 5000 of the stills and 35 of the movie clips showed the worst kinds of sexual abuse.

The experts found that Porter’s collection had been downloaded between November 2001 and June 2011.

“In order to produce this size of a collection the accused must have spent an average of several hours a day involved in this activity,” said Mr Carmichael.

“This is the largest single recovery of indecent images that has been made so far by Lothian and Borders Police.”

Father-of-two Porter – who lived alone in a flat on Craigentinny Road – came to court in a wheelchair to admit a charge of taking or permitting to be taken indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children.

The court heard he had suffered from a congenital physical handicap since birth, which had resulted in the amputation of his right leg ten years ago.

Judge Lord Brodie called for background reports and remanded first offender Porter in custody pending sentence next month.