GREENOCK MAN CAUGHT SHARING HUNDREDS OF CHILD ABUSE PICTURES VIA MESSAGING APP
A GREENOCK man has been placed on the sex offenders register after he admitted sharing hundreds of indecent images of children with others through a messaging app.Peter Gullick, 47, pleaded guilty to having the photos on devices at his home address between April 2015 and June 2023.
He distributed or showed indecent photographs from the same address between January and May of last year.
Greenock Sheriff Court was told that in February last year, Police Scotland’s public protection Unit received information that the user of a Kik Messenger account had uploaded six category A images to the internet.
Details associated with the account were attributed to Gullick.
Officers attended his home address shortly before 8:30am on June 7 last year along with the cyber crime team, with Gullick granting officers access to the property.
A search was carried out, and a mobile phone, HP laptop and a hard drive were recovered.
Gullick was arrested around two hours after police arrived at his home and was conveyed to Greenock police office for interview.
The court was told that Gullick had made admissions during the interview, and was later cautioned and charged, to which he replied: “Guilty.” A fiscal depute told the court that 128 moving images containing child sexual exploitation were found on the mobile phone seized from Gullick’s property.
These featured children aged two to 12, with some deemed to fall under the most serious category.
A further 369 moving images were recovered from another device.
Gullick, a first offender, was found to have distributed photographs via Telegram, an encrypted instant messaging app.
On several occasions between January and May last year, he engaged in conversations which saw a number of images exchanged with other users.
During one conversation, more than 100 category A and category C photographs were sent.
Sheriff James Varney told Gullick: “This behaviour has no place in our society.
You are under no illusion that everything is at the forefront of my mind, given the nature of the offences.” Gullick’s sentencing was deferred until September 23 to allow for the preparation of social work reports, with Sheriff Varney granting him bail in the meantime.
He was placed on the sex offenders register in the interim, and will discover how long he will remain on the register when he returns to court next month.
