Hawick man caught with thousands of indecent images of children is jailed

A 35-year-old man from Hawick caught with more than 9,000 indecent images and videos of children has today (Monday) been jailed for 22 months and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years.

Selkirk Sheriff Court heard the sickening haul included the rape of babies by adult males.

Stuart Barnes - who was previously jailed for possessing indecent images of children - downloaded the images, featuring boys and girls aged between one and 12, onto a mobile phone between April 17th and August 28th, 2022.

Police, acting on intelligence, seized the device during a search of his ground-floor flat in Hawick.

But the bearded beast initially refused to give officers his PIN number.

Drew Long, prosecuting, said: "Some of the movies were very distressing."

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The court heard a total of 8,995 still images and 223 videos were found on the phone - including 619 images and 11 videos in Category A, which is the worst level of offending.

Barnes' solicitor blamed a difficult childhood and traumatic events surrounding the death of his mother for his client's behaviour.

But Sheriff Peter Paterson noted he had been convicted of a similar offence before his mother died and said he’d be failing in his duty if he didn’t impose a custodial sentence.

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