MORAY 22-YEAR-OLD SENTENCED FOR INDECENT IMAGES AND VIDEOS OF CHILDREN
A 22-year-old man has been apprehended for possessing indecent images and videos of children on his mobile device.Police visited Barry Millar on June 25, 2024, following the collection of an investigation package related to him.
During a hearing at Inverness Sheriff Court, it was revealed that authorities found multiple images and videos on his phone, which had been shared via the Telegram messaging app.
The investigation uncovered 146 images classified as category A—the most severe—along with 91 images in category B and over 60 in category C.
All these images were inaccessible at the time.
Additionally, several videos were found, also inaccessible, with 147 categorized as A, 25 as B, and five as C, totaling 57 minutes and 24 seconds in length.
Fiscal depute Victoria Silver informed Sheriff Robert Macdonald that Millar was involved in 584 Telegram chats, some of which were one-on-one conversations, while others were group chats.
Millar’s defense solicitor, Clare Russell, explained that the images and videos had been received through these chats over a single day.
She stated that Millar had deleted the content but was unaware that it remained stored in his phone’s cache.
Hailing from Muirton, Lossiemouth, Millar admitted to the offence of taking, permitting to be taken, or making indecent images of children on June 23, 2024.
Sheriff Robert Macdonald sentenced him to 160 hours of unpaid work within a year, placed him under social work supervision for two years, and mandated participation in the Moving Forward 2 Change Programme as an alternative to imprisonment.
He also imposed conduct requirements and registered him on the sex offenders register for two years.
Ms Russell added: “He believed he had deleted the images on that day.
He was unaware that once deleted, they were still stored in the cache folder.
He has not reoffended in the past two years and poses a minimal risk of reoffending.”
