Paedophile once jailed for having 400,0000 child porn pictures is caught with more indecent images

A West Lothian paedophile jailed a decade ago for having one of the largest collections of child pornography ever known in the UK has been caught with more indecent images of youngsters.

Scots detectives found the vile pictures when they swooped on convicted sex offender Michael Morgan at his home just two hours after his flight from Spain landed in Scotland.

They found the 36-year-old’s iPhone X not only contained indecent images of children, it was also equipped with a TOB “Dark Net” browser and the DuckDuckGo search engine to hide the websites he visited.

Morgan was jailed for 10 months in 2009 and placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years after he was convicted in England of possessing almost 400,000 indecent images of children aged between two and 14.

Livingston High Court

After he admitted 25 charges of downloading child porn between January 2000 and June 2005, Liverpool Crown Court was told he had been caught after the FBI traced an email paying for access to a paedophile site back to him.

The former genetics student had paid $50 to subscribe for 30 days to the Michigan-based child porn website in July 2004.

At Livingston Sheriff Court on Monday, Morgan pled guilty to two fresh indictment charges of possessing indecent images and having prohibited software on his mobile phone, between July 1 and October 4, 2018.

Procurator Fiscal Jim Robertson moved for sentence and presented the court with a list of the accused’s previous convictions.

He said: “It was at 11am on Thursday, 4 October last year that police were made aware the accused had triggered an alert to say that he’d returned to Scotland from Spain.

“Two hours later officers attended at his home unannounced, in line with Police Scotland guidelines in relation to sex offender notification requirements.”

Morgan produced a black iPhone X which contained indicators of indecent images of children, and he was immediately cautioned and arrested and remanded in custody.

Mr Robertson added: “After the phone was fully analysed, they found a number of indecent images of children: five in category A, seven in category B and seven in category C.

“Subsequently police also found that this device had the TOB application installed, software used to encrypt and hide the user’s activity.

“It was also installed with another application ‘DuckDuckGo’, which is search engine designed not to store search history.”

Having both of these is a contravention of a sexual offences prevention order.

Defence lawyer, Kevin Dugan, said Morgan had been in custody since his arrest because no bail application had been made when he appeared from custody on October 5 least year.

Sheriff Susan Craig told Morgan his name was being added to the sex offenders register for a second time.

She said: “Given the matters that you’ve pled guilty to I require to obtain reports.

“However. you will not be at your liberty while those are prepared and you’re going to be remanded in custody.”

Morgan is due to be sentenced on February 22.

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