A KILBIRNIE man who was caught in possession of thousands of indecent images of children as young as nine has been spared a prison sentence.

Dylan Stevenson, 27 (date of birth December 12, 1996), had pleaded guilty to being in possession of the huge haul of images over a period of 13 months on Meadowfoot Road in West Kilbride and elsewhere.

Stevenson, formerly of Glenriddet Avenue, Kilbirnie, pleaded guilty at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court on July 16 to possession of more than 5,000 indecent photos of children.

The court was told that officers with a search warrant raided his former home address and found a mobile phone.

On the phone, 5,248 indecent images were found, with 3,340 of those accessible to the user of the phone.

Children as young as nine were included in the images, with the phone also containing seven indecent videos.

At a sentencing hearing on September 2, his solicitor told the court that Stevenson had lost his job due to the case and that his accommodation had changed several times in recent months. 

He was said to have "acknowledged the wrongfulness of his conduct", and the court was told that he planned to leave the area at the earliest opportunity.

The court was also told that Stevenson was in a relationship, and had become a father earlier this year, but was now not permitted any contact with the child.

Sheriff Murdoch MacTaggart told Stevenson that it was a "very narrow decision" not to send him to custody.

He was handed a community payback order which will see him supervised by social workers for the next three years, and was ordered to undertake 240 hours of unpaid work in the community.

Stevenson will also be required to take part in the Moving Forward Making Changes programme, which aims to tackle the behaviour of those who have been convicted of sexual offences. 

He was also placed on the sex offenders register for three years, and was handed a three year conduct requirement with a number of conditions relating to his contact with children.

NOTE

We would like to make clear that the man involved in this case is a Dylan Stevenson, aged 27, from Kilbirnie.

The Herald does not have an image of the man involved in the court case and so we are unable to use this alongside our coverage.