By Cara Sulieman
A STUDENT who was caught with more than 1,000 sick images of underage girls and initially denied having the porn has been spared jail.
Jonathan Wright, 19, finally admitted to police he had downloaded them for the “thrill” when he was arrested in November last year.
The Edinburgh University student told officers that he had downloaded the sick pictures to “see if they were real”.
And today (fri) at Edinburgh Sheriff Court the Geology student was sentenced to three years probation and 200 hours community service for possession of the images between August 26 and November 17 last year.
The court heard that the teenager downloaded the vile images after a “relationship break down”.
Defence agent Colm Dempsey said: “He experienced a traumatic relationship break down and then he engaged looking at adult pornography which deteriated into looking at these images.
“He seemed to be initially not appreciating his behaviour when interviewed by the police but he has found a greater understanding of these matters.
“He now realises it is not a victimless crime and that his involvement with the images precipitates a demand for this type of material.”
The court heard that most of the pictures downloaded by Wright were of young girls aged between 10 and 13.
But at least one was of a man having sex with a child thought to be just a few years old.
Police received a tip off that Wright had the paedophilic snaps and visited his parents in Aberdeen before being re-directed to halls of residence at Edinburgh University.
The court heard: “A laptop was found and the accused confirmed it was his laptop.
“He initially didn’t state there were any images on it.
“It was removed for forensic examination and the forensic investigations found 1,005 indecent images and 46 moving images on his laptop.”
Wright was then taken in for questioning by police and revealed he had got a “thrill” out of doing something “dangerous”.
The court heard: “He said he had downloaded the images because he was curious to see if they were real.
“He confirmed that he had done this on a number of occasions. He stated between 10 and 20 times.
“He claimed he got a thrill obtaining the images not because he got a sexual thrill but because he was doing something dangerous.
“He had used search terms on search engines specifically to find indecent images of children.”
Of the 1,005 images, most were on the lowest level used by cops to determine the severity of paedophilic content.
But the schoolboy had six on the highest level and 10 on level four.
They included pictures showing underage girls tied up and other young girls having sex with male adults.
Sentencing the teenager, Sheriff Alistair Noble said he had read “very, very good things” about the teenager in the background reports and references supplied to the court.
He placed three special conditions onto the probation order; that Wright allow police to search his computer at any time, that he does not have unsupervised contact with children under 16 and that he carry out 200 hours community service.
Wright was also placed on the sex offenders register for three years.
