Description
A man who was caught with horror videos of children being raped and tortured with a total running time of 21 days has been jailed.
Anthony Ward (Tony Ward) was found with more than 85,000 pictures and videos of children being sexually abused by adults when police raided his Edinburgh home last year.
During the police investigation officers also discovered the 66-year-old had been contacting children on an online video website and offering them money to perform sex acts.
Ward pleaded guilty to a charge of taking or allowing to be taken images of children at his home between November 2020 and March last year when he appeared at the Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month.
He also admitted to two offences of directing sexual communication towards children and instructing them to perform sex acts and returned to the dock for sentencing on Tuesday.
Defence agent Peter Barr said his client acknowledged the material was abhorrent and horrific but had downloaded the images on mass not with the intention of watching them all.
Sheriff Charles Walls told Ward he had been complicit in the abuse of the youngsters depicted in the images with some of the footage showing the torture of children.
Sheriff Walls said: You have been convicted of serious charges relating to possession of indecent images of children and indecent communication with children.
There were a very significant number of category A images, the most serious category, involving penetrative sexual activity and sadism.
In total there were over 80,000 images and videos and when played consecutively it would take over three weeks [for the videos] to be played.
Charge five is particularly serious as you engaged in a video conversation with a child, asked her to masturbate and you also offered to pay her money.
Ward, of the citys Calder area, was jailed for 20 months and was placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
Previously the court was told police received intelligence indecent images were being accessed at Wards home and raided the property at around 7.25am on March 17 last year.
Prosecutor Gillian Koren said 20 USB sticks, three hard drives and a laptop were seized by officers and indecent images of children were found on all the devices.
Ms Koren said a total of 85,763 images and videos had been found with 2957 rated by forensic investigators at Category A - the most serious end of the spectrum.
The fiscal told the court the children involved were aged between four and 15-years-old and the file names included baby rape - hardcore and no limits - child.
Police also found chat logs on the Telegram messaging service that showed Ward had been in contact with children online and had been forcing them to perform sex acts on themselves.
Ward pleaded guilty to a charge of taking, or allowing to be taken, images of children at his home address between November 1, 2020 and March 17 last year.
He also admitted to two offences of directing sexual communication towards children and instructing them to perform sex acts, all between June 14 and December 1, 2011.