Tranent pervert was caught with haul of sickening child abuse images and bestiality porn

A man caught with a sickening collection of child abuse images and bestiality porn has escaped a jail sentence - despite being deemed as posing a “high risk” of reoffending.

Sickening haul: Stein

Greig Stein downloaded a stash of horrific images of young boys and girls being sexually abused along with vile pictures of women engaging in sex acts with horses.

Stein, 30, stored the images on a mobile phone and a computer over a near two year period at his home in Tranent, East Lothian.

He was caught with 55 Category B images of children aged between six and 13-years-old when police officers discovered the haul in February last year.

The pervert was also found to have 16 extreme pornographic pictures depicting adult women and horses hidden away on his computer hard drive.

Stein’s phone was also examined by cyber crime officers who discovered a further five indecent images of children. The specialist officers are experts at uncovering encrypted content on hard drives from computers, tablets and mobile phones.

He appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court for sentencing after he had previously admitted two offences under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

Solicitor Peter O’Neill, defending, told the court the social work report deemed Stein to be a “high risk of reoffending of sexual offences” due to him “minimising his role in this”.

But Mr O’Neill said the first offender was “deeply ashamed of his conduct” and asked Sheriff Alistair Noble to follow the report’s ultimate recommendation and impose a supervision order.

Sheriff Noble said Stein had pled guilty to “two serious offences” but after reading the report and hearing Mr O’Neill’s submissions he was “not persuaded custody should be imposed”.

The sheriff added: “I am satisfied this case can be dealt with in a non-custodial way.”

Stein was placed under social work supervision and on the Sex Offenders’ Register for three years.

He pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children between April 1, 2018 and February 18 last year.

Stein also admitted to possessing extreme pornographic images depicting sexual activity between a person and an animal between May 18, 2018 and February 18 last year.

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