Edinburgh crime: Paul Marr who was caught with haul of child abuse images pleads guilty in court

Man caught with haul of child abuse images pleads guilty in court

A Scottish man who was found with a horror collection of child abuse images tried to blame his dead partner when he was caught by police.

Paul Marr was caught in possession of images and videos featuring the rape and sexual abuse of children as young as six years old when police raided his Edinburgh home last year. Marr, 48, downloaded the disgusting material to two laptops over a 17 month period that showed boys and girls being sexually abused by adults.

And following his arrest he told officers “my previous partner who is dead used them also”. Fiscal depute Rosie Cook told Edinburgh Sheriff Court officers from Police Scotland’s Online Child Abuse and Exploitation team carried out a search of Marr’s home at around 8am on October 22 last year.

Paul Marr was caught with child abuse images

Ms Cook said he was home alone and he had informed officers that he had been sent links while engaged in online chats with fellow paedophiles. Marr said he had opened the links but then immediately deleted the images when he saw what they contained. Two laptops were seized and forensically analysed by cyber crime officers and the devices were found to hold 105 sordid images and three videos.

Ms Cook said the indecent images featured both boys and girls with one movie showing the rape of a six year old female child by an adult male. The court was told when Marr was arrested he told officers: “I hadn’t used them for ages. My previous partner who is dead used them also.”

The fiscal also said Marr’s laptops were found to contain file deletion software which could be used in an attempt to hide his download history. Sheriff Donald Corke placed Marr, of the capital's Craigmillar area, on the sex offenders register and deferred sentence to next month. Marr pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children between May 15, 2015 and October 16, 2016.