Ex-Official Had Child Porn Images

A former senior official at Stirling Council has been sentenced to nine months in jail for possession of more than 1,000 images of child pornography. Timothy Dixon, 60, was sentenced at Stirling Sheriff Court after pleading guilty to having images of almost 500 individual child victims.

The court heard they ranged in age from babies through to 16-year-olds. Some of the images involved child rape. The father-of-two was arrested after a German police investigation. Officers in Cottbus circulated Dixon’s name to Central Scotland Police after his name appeared on a list of subscribers to a child porn website and discussion forum.

Police raided Dixon’s cottage at Pine Court, Doune, in May 2006 and seized his computer along with a stack of discs and memory sticks. The court heard they found 1,279 pictures of children being abused, plus seven films.

Officers at the National High-Tech Crime Unit for Scotland in Edinburgh and Central Scotland Police’s computer crime unit in Falkirk analysed the items. The court heard the collection included images of children ranging from babies to teenagers being tortured and raped.

Among the victims featured were seven babies under the age of one, 44 toddlers aged between one and three and 96 children aged between three and five. Most of the victims were girls.

Principal procurator fiscal depute Andrew Richard said officers had worked out that 470 individual children had been abused in the production of Dixon’s cache. He added: “There were large numbers of images where very young children are clearly being raped. They depict an extreme level of child abuse.”

Mr Richardson said Dixon told police he started looking at child porn because “run of the mill adult stuff doesn’t work for me.” “He admitted he got sexual gratification from seeing children subjected to horrendous sexual abuse,” said Mr Richardson said.

Dixon, who ran the council’s team of countryside rangers, admitted downloading and possessing child porn at his home between August 2005 and May 2006. The court heard social workers who prepared pre-sentence reports on Dixon said he seemed to “lack empathy”.

Sheriff William Gilchrist reduced Dixon’s sentence from 12 months to nine months because of his guilty plea. He made him the subject of an additional extended sentence of two years, which he will serve on his release in the community. The sheriff also placed him on the sex offenders register for life.

Passing sentence, the sheriff said: “You have recognised these were real children being abused. It is quite clear that there is a need for the protection of the public once you are released.”

Det Sgt David Nolan, from Central Scotland Police’s e-crime unit in Falkirk, told BBC Scotland’s news website: “We take child protection very seriously and our e-crime unit is at the forefront of fighting online abuse. This sends out a message that we are unrelenting in our fight against this type of crime.”