Child sex offender forced to flee Edinburgh home with police guard after locals protest outside

Anthony Ward was jailed and placed on the sex offenders register last year after he was caught with more than 85,000 horrific images depicting child rape and torture.

Ward, 67, possessed a shocking haul of videos that had a running time of more than 21 days. During the police investigation officers also discovered Ward had been contacting victims and offering them money to perform solos sex acts on the video website Telegram.

Ward was recently released early from his prison sentence and was back living at his flat at the capital’s Calder area. But the pensioner was forced to move away from the area under a police escort after residents gathered outside his property to protest at his return to their community last Saturday.

Footage of Ward leaving his home accompanied by several police officers has been shared on the social media site Tik Tok and been viewed more than 70,000 times.

Anthony Ward outside Edinburgh Sheriff Court | Alexander Lawrie

Around half a dozen constables and three police cars are seen on the footage as officers help Ward carry his belongings to a waiting vehicle.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: "Around 7.05pm on Saturday, 7 June, 2025, we received a report of a crowd gathered outside a property on Calder Grove, Edinburgh. Officers attended and spoke with the crowd and they dispersed.”

Ward appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last September where he was jailed for 20 months by Sheriff Charles Walls after pleading guilty to two child sex offences. 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.

The court was told police received intelligence indecent images were being accessed at Ward’s home and raided the property at around 7.25am on March 17, 2023. Equipment including 20 USB sticks, three hard drives and a laptop were seized by officers and indecent images of children aged between four and 15-years-old were found on all the devices.

The court heard a total of 85,763 images and videos were found with file names including “baby rape - hardcore” and “no limits - child”. A total of 2,957 were rated by forensic investigators at Category A - the most depraved end of the spectrum.

Police also found Telegram chat logs that proved Ward had been in contact with children and he had been forcing them to perform sex acts on themselves in exchange for cash.

In sentencing, Sheriff Walls told Ward he had been “complicit in the abuse” of the young victims depicted in the footage that showed “the torture of children”.

Sheriff Walls said: “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.”

The sheriff jailed Ward for 20 months and placed him on the sex offenders register for 10 years.