A DISABILITY worker has been struck off for downloading images of a baby being raped.
Euan McKean was jailed for six months last year after police found more than 2,000 indecent pictures of children on his computer.
The sickening collection also contained extreme pornographic images of sexual activity between people and animals.
McKean, who was working as a support worker at Leonard Cheshire Disability in Dumfries at the time, was placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.
And now he has been struck off by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) – meaning he will never be able to return to a career in social work.
McKean was 28-years-old during the trial at Dumfries Sheriff Court in July last year.
There were reported gasps of disgust from the public benches as Sheriff George Jamieson described the “shocking” images.
He listed three in particular in what he called a “troubling case” which showed a baby being raped, a young girl aged between eight and 10 being subjected to abuse and a two or three-year old child being “tortured”.
During the trial McKean admitted the offences, which took place at his home between April 2013 and January 2015.
He was jailed for six months and made the subject of an extended sentence with supervision in the community for three years.
At the time, solicitor Liz Dougan said first offender McKean realised his actions had been completely wrong.
He faced the same two charges at the SSSC hearing in Dundee last month, both of which were found proven.
The first charge reads that between 18 April 2013 and 14 January 2015 he did “take or permit to be taken or make indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children”.
The second charge states that between 2 April 2013 and 14 January 2015 he had “in his possession extreme pornographic images depicting in an explicit and realistic way acts which involved sexual activity between people and animals”.
At the hearing, the panel ruled that the charges were “extremely serious”.
They decided to strike the disability worker off the register, and the decision notice states that his behaviour amounted to a “serious abuse of trust” and that his actions suggested a “harmful deep-seated personality problem”.
They add that his behaviour is “fundamentally incompatible with with continuing to be a social service worker” and decided that a removal order was both “necessary and justified”.
Leonard Cheshire Disability, where McKean worked at the time of the offences, provides care homes and also offers support for older people and those with disabilities in their own home.
