MAN FOUND WITH EXTENSIVE CHILD ABUSE IMAGES AND VIDEOS
A sex offender from Moray was discovered with an extensive collection of illicit material, including nearly two weeks' worth of videos involving child abuse and over 40,000 indecent images of minors.When police executed a search warrant at his residence in Elgin on October 2, 2025, Mark Whitton, aged 56, reportedly told officers that “everything is over for me.” The investigation uncovered material featuring infants as young as one year old.
Whitton admitted to possessing three hard drives containing images of children.
During the search, Inverness Sheriff Court was told that authorities seized one laptop and three hard drives from Whitton’s home.
Prosecutor Emily Hood explained that the laptop contained 152 inaccessible images along with AI-generated content, depicting boys and girls from age one to 14 involved in sexual acts with adults and peers.
These images were categorised by severity: 24 in Category A, the worst; 23 in Category B; and 105 in Category C.
One hard drive included a Category A accessible video of a child engaging in sexual activity, alongside 16,368 inaccessible images 5,275 of which were Category A, 9,281 Category B, and 1,812 Category C.
The same hard drive also held 228 inaccessible videos of child abuse, with 81 in Category A, 56 in Category B, and 91 in Category C.
Additionally, there were five accessible videos and one inaccessible image depicting extreme bestiality involving women and animals, primarily dogs.
A second hard drive contained 999 accessible videos showing children aged five to 14 in sexually provocative poses.
Among these, a subfolder held 230 videos and one image, all accessible, featuring children from three to 14 years old.
Another folder had three videos of children aged six to 11, with 140 rated Category A, 45 rated Category B, and 814 Category C.
This drive also contained 142 videos of extreme pornography involving sexual acts with animals.
The third hard drive stored 19,214 accessible images, including 37 in Category A, 226 in Category B, and 18,951 in Category C.
It also contained 5,342 inaccessible images of children aged five to 14, all graded as Category C.
Furthermore, there were 1,088 accessible videos 677 Category A, 174 Category B, and 237 Category C and a subfolder with 838 videos and 417 images of extreme pornography, again involving bestiality.
Overall, Whitton accumulated 41,077 images and 2,316 videos of child sexual abuse, with the total video duration exceeding 302 hours over 12 days.
He also possessed 418 images of extreme pornography and 985 videos, totaling more than 511 hours, or over 21 days.
Whitton, formerly residing on Land Street in Elgin, pleaded guilty to making or allowing indecent images of children and to possessing such images.
He also admitted to owning explicit material depicting bestiality.
These offenses occurred over nearly five years, from November 21, 2019, until his arrest in October 2025.
The court heard Sheriff Cruickshank remand Whitton in custody and postponed sentencing until August 18 to allow for background reports.
