Paedophile jailed for spending time alone with teenage girl

A convicted paedophile breached his bail by spending time alone with an under-age girl, a court heard.

Andrew Law was jailed at Livingston Sheriff Court

Andrew Law was barred from having any unsupervised contact with children after he pled guilty to possessing indecent images of youngsters being sexually abused.

But on two separate occasions he allowed the 15-year-old girl to chat to him in his home and in his garage when there was no other adult present.

Kate Fabian, defending, told Livingston Sheriff Court that the girl was the daughter of a local family.

Law had previously had a “close relationship” with her parents, she said.

“For years preceding this, it was not uncommon for him to speak to the family’s children or be in the company of the parents.

“As the complainer got older, it appears she had a troubled relationship with her step mother.

“She started to go to Mr Law’s address to use the computer when her mother had banned her or taken her phone off her.

‘After bail conditions were imposed there were two occasions when she attended at his home.

“He did have brief conversations with her before he made an excuse to leave.”

She added that as a result of “repercussions” in the area, Law now planned to sell his home and move to a different town completely.

Earlier the court was told that Law downloaded twisted pictures of children being sexually abused onto his laptop and a Hudl device at his then home.

He was caught after Police Scotland’s cyber crime unit received intelligence that his IP address had been used to access illegal images.

Detectives applied for a search warrant and went to his then home in Birniehill Crescent in Bathgate, Livingston Sheriff Court heard.

He was questioned by officers before they carried out a search.

Officers seized a laptop and the other storage device which on examination they found contained more than 30 indecent photographs of children.

The images included eight photographs at Category A – the most serious – two at Category B and 22 rated Category C, all of children either being abused or posing naked.

Law, 54, pled guilty on indictment to possessing the images between 16 October 2014 and 5 January 2017.

He was detained in custody on September 20, 2017, after pleading guilty to the bail offence.

He was sentenced to eight months in prison yesterday for the breach of bail, backdated to the time of his remand.

He was also ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work and made subject to social work supervision for three years under a community payback order for possessing the indecent images.

Law was banned him from accessing the internet or being alone with children and must take part in a sex offenders’ education programme.