A PERVERT caught with sickening child abuse images on his computer has avoided jail.
Michael Lawless, 24, ‘claimed’ to have downloaded the images by accident while surfing the net for adult porn.
But Stuart McMillan, prosecuting, said: “The browser history indicated searches had been carried out using the words pre-teen sex, pedo, kids, kiddie and child prostitution.”
Officers armed with a search warrant raided Lawless’s home in Girdle Toll, Irvine, while he was out and took away a computer.
They discovered 33 indecent images of children along with 17 paedophile movie files – 16 of which were of the second most serious category involving child rape.
The phrase “pre-teen hardcore” had also been typed into the browser, Kilmarnock Sheriff Court heard.
Lawless, a call centre worker and father, admitted possessing indecent photographs between September 2006 and May 2007, when he was arrested.
He was given 150 hours’ community service, three years’ probation and put on the Sex Offenders’ Register for the same period.
