Edinburgh crime: Man jailed over haul of more than 40,000 child abuse images and videos

During the raid of his home Police found a laptop hidden in a suitcase under the bed.

An Edinburgh man who was caught with more than 40,000 child abuse images and videos has been jailed for 12 months.

Sanjay Rana, 39, was found to have the huge haul of indecent images when police raided his home in the Newington area of the capital last year. Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told officers arrived with a search warrant at Rana’a flat at around 8am on September 13 last year.

Following a search of the property a number of electronic devices were seized including an Apple laptop and a hard drive found hidden away within a suitcase under his bed. During the search Rana, a Nepalese national, told officers “I would like to confess” and he was cautioned and arrested at that point. A police cyber crime investigation showed Rana was the sole user of both devices and thousands of sickening pictures and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children were found.

Videos and photos were found on his laptop, hidden in a suitcase under his bed

The court was told the laptop contained 15,771 files with 203 images and 259 videos rated as category A - the most depraved end of the spectrum. Prosecutor Matthew Millar said the images depicted “young females aged between six and 10 engaging in penetrative sexual acts with adults”.

Mr Millar said the hard drive held details that Rana had attended at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst some point in his past and also contained a total of 26,245 child abuse files.

The fiscal depute said the 161 images and videos rated at category A found on the device showed “male and female children aged between six and 14 involved in penetrative acts with adults and other children”.

The court was told Rana had been found in possession of a total of 42,016 child abuse images along with a further 1074 videos of the same nature.

Rana pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children at his home address between February 23, 2019 and September 13 last year when he appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month.

He returned to the dock for sentencing on Friday where Sheriff Derek O’Carroll said the offence had been “aggravated by the large number of images”.

Sheriff O’Carroll added: “This was also aggravated by the large number of, albeit a minority, of images that were category A involving young females aged between six and 10 engaged in sexual activity with adult males. Your offending is also aggravated that you sought out these images using your search engine.

“In my view there is no alternative [to a custodial sentence] given regard to the nature of the offending and the aggravating factors.”

Rana was jailed for 12 months and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for 10 years.