A GREENOCK man charged with possession of indecent images of children and extreme pornography depicting bestiality has gone on trial before a jury.

Robert Leith, who first appeared in court on the matters in 2021, is facing allegations which span a period of 22 years.

It is alleged he was in possession of material ‘depicting in an explicit and realistic way’ bestiality between 2011 and 2021.

Leith is also charged with taking or permitting to be taken, or making, indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children between February 1999 and July 2021.

The 65-year-old previously offered a plea of guilty to the bestiality charge, and not guilty to the child images charges, but this was rejected by the Crown.

His trial began at Greenock Sheriff Court this week, with jurors hearing evidence from a computer forensic analyst who produced reports detailing evidence obtained from devices found by police at Leith’s home.

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The witness said a total of 6,675 child sexual exploitation images were discovered on an external drive – 1,041 of which were described as category A photographs – as well as more than 10,000 files containing extreme pornography featuring ‘animals and adult humans’.

Forensic analysts also ran checks on emails which had been received by the user of a computer tower device recovered by police.

A total of 179 emails containing terms indicative of child abuse in the sender address or subject line were found.

The expert witness told the court that he could not say for certain whether the attachments in the emails had been opened.

He added: “The addresses and terms that are used in the subject line and from addresses would indicate that the user has either been on a website or discussion forum where they are actively trying to seek these images to be sent to them.

“These are not normal terms people get in spam mail without actively looking for it.”

The forensic analyst said the user had used peer-to-peer software to ‘view or download’ images with file names indicative of child abuse on multiple occasions dating as far back as 2008.

He described this as a ‘concerted effort’ to obtain such material, and said the user would have been ‘actively seeking’ these images.

Greenock Telegraph: Greenock Sheriff Court

Shellbags – which act as evidence of a file having been accessed by a user – were also discovered during forensic analysis of the devices.

A total of 142 of these used terms which are deemed by analysts to be indicative of child abuse.

The court heard that the user had also downloaded and used ‘dark web’ software, which is intended to protect privacy and make internet activity difficult to trace, to access material.

The witness said files containing child abuse imagery and extreme pornography were later found in folders named after TV shows and popular games, and that this indicated ‘a certain degree of awareness as to the placement of these files’.

One such folder was named after sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica.

The analyst told the court: “I personally don’t think that’s a mistake. I think that’s a deliberate act.

“It’s something that we see regularly in examinations."

Asked if any of the material discussed could have been obtained accidentally, the witness added: “They possibly could’ve been included in a file, but the numbers we’re looking at and the different places they have potentially come from, I would argue that none of these have been by chance.”

The trial at Greenock Sheriff Court continues.