East Lothian crime: Men encouraged each other to sexually assault children and swapped pictures of their abuse

Brandon Miller, 22, and his partner Anthony McKnight, 38, carried out sex attacks on their young victims before texting each other footage of what they had done.

The couple used WhatsApp to encourage one another to commit the assaults on the children as well as downloading abuse images depicting new-born babies being sexually abused.

Anthony McKnight has been jailed for four years after pleading guilty to three offences | Alex Lawrie

McKnight was jailed for four years with a two year licence period and placed on the sex offenders register for life after he pleaded guilty to three offences at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last year.

His lover Miller is now facing a similar sentence after he admitted his guilt on five child sex abuse charges when he appeared from custody at the Capital court last week.

Prosecutor Clare Green read out a pre-prepared written narration to the court, detailing the couple’s behaviour.

Ms Green said officers from the National Child Abuse and Exploitation Unit raided McKnight’s home in Haddington, East Lothian, on June 26 last year.

His mobile phone was seized and chat logs between him and Miller were found with “a significant volume of messages discussing the sexual abuse of the child who was in the care of Mr McKnight”.

The court heard McKnight, a hotel manager, had sent Miller four videos of him sexually abusing a child he had met while he was on a holiday in Wales in December 2023.

McKnight was also caught with around 5,000 child sex abuse images depicting children and new-born babies being abused by adult men.

The court was told as a result of the raid on McKnight’s home officers had then attended at Miller’s flat in Haddington with a warrant at around 6.50am on September 20 last year.

An electronic tablet was found to contain two videos of male children aged between eight and 10-years-old being sexually abused, stored in the device’s ‘hidden album’ section.

Officers also recovered deleted photographs Miller had taken and sent to McKnight of him abusing a four-year-old child he had been tasked with looking after at his home.

Sheriff Gillian Sharp remanded Miller in custody and placed him on the sex offenders register on an interim basis. Sentence was deferred for the preparation of criminal justice social work reports and a risk assessment to next month.

Miller pleaded guilty to five offences including sexually assaulting a child and to possessing and distributing indecent images of children, all between March 2 and September 20 last year.

He also admitted to inciting another person, namely Anthony McKnight, to repeatedly assault a 10-year-old child on December 28, 2023.