An Andreas man has been given a suspended sentence for possessing 60 indecent images of children.

Ryan Owen Pegg, also known as Fairbairn, was also made the subject of a Sexual Offence Prevention Order (SOPO).

The 31-year-old admitted six counts of the offence, claiming he had become reckless as to what websites he visited and had deleted the images of children immediately after opening them.

Magistrates sentenced him to 39 weeks’ custody, suspended for two years, and also made him the subject of a two-year suspended sentence supervision order.

Pegg was also put under a five-year order relating to Sexual Offences Notification Requirements which means he must notify police of certain personal details and information.

Prosecuting advocate Peter Connick told the court that Pegg was arrested in June 2023.

Electronic devices, including his mobile phone, a laptop, games consoles, and a PC, were seized.

In an area on the PC containing deleted files, 59 indecent still images of children were found, and one indecent video.

They were categorised using the Copine scale, which measures the severity of an image from one to five, with five being the most severe.

The results were as follows; 28 images at level one, five images at level two, nine images at level three, 17 images at level four, and one image at level five.

A basis of plea was entered for Pegg, who lives at Larivane Estate.

In it, he said he had developed an addiction to pornography which had gradually worsened.

He said he had begun visiting non-mainstream type porn sites but had never been looking for images of children.

Pegg said that he had become reckless when clicking on files, but had immediately deleted any indecent images of children after opening them only once.

The court heard that he had no previous convictions.

Defence advocate Peter Taylor asked for credit to be given for the guilty pleas and said that the number of images at levels four and five had been small.

Mr Taylor said that it would be best to deal with Pegg by way of rehabilitation as well as punishment.

‘Mr Pegg admitted he had been on non-mainstream sites where there are no safeguards in place.

‘He came close to the edge of where he should be and has occasionally fallen off.

‘All the images were in a deleted area that was not accessible.

‘The police used their software to recover them.

‘They weren’t readily available to Mr Pegg.’

The advocate pointed out that the police analysis had shown that images had been opened on January 27 at 3.45pm and then deleted at the same time, which he said supported Pegg’s claim that he had immediately deleted them.

‘He accepts the criminality but it was not deliberate persistent offending,’ said Mr Taylor.

‘There was no distribution or sharing of images.’

A probation report assessed Pegg as a low risk of harm to others and a medium risk of reoffending, but Mr Taylor said that this could be addressed by the SOPO.

Magistrates also ordered Pegg to pay £125 prosecution costs.