Edinburgh crime: Aylwin Gordon pleads guilty after sending child abuse images to online predators

Aylwin Gordon pretended to be a 13-year-old schoolgirl and sent naked pictures of children he had taken to online paedophiles.

A man pretended to be a 13-year-old schoolgirl and sent naked pictures of children he had taken to online paedophiles.

Aylwin Gordon asked the online predators to send him videos of them performing solos sex acts while they watched the indecent images he had sent them.

Gordon, 36, also downloaded depraved pictures and videos depicting the sexual abuse of children including babies as young as one month old. Gordon, of Walkerburn, Scottish Borders, was snared after police raided his former home in Midlothian after receiving intelligence he was in possession of the child abuse material.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told officers seized a laptop and a mobile phone and subsequently discovered hundreds of disgusting pictures and videos stored on the devices.

During the cyber crime investigation officers also found chat logs between Gordon and several unknown men he was in contact with on the Kik Messenger app.

Fiscal depute Susan Dickson told the court police officers arrived at Gordon’s former home with a search warrant at around 2.45pm on July 17, 2022.

A mobile phone was handed over by “a compliant” Gordon and a during further search of the property a laptop and a hard drive were also seized. Ms Dickson said the devices were found to hold more than 400 images and videos depicting male and female children aged between one month and 15 years old engaged in sexual activity with other children and adults.

The fiscal said during the investigation officers also found several “tribute videos” where Gordon had pretended to a 13 year old girl and sent images he had taken to online perverts on the Kik social media app.

The court was told he had requested the men record themselves masturbating over the images and then send him the videos of them completing the act.

Gordon pleaded guilty to several sexual offences involving children when he appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Thursday.

Defence agent Michael Elliot said he would reserve all his mitigation to the next hearing.

Sheriff Iain Nicol placed Gordon on the Sex Offenders Register for a term still to be determined and deferred full sentence for social work reports to be prepared to March. Gordon pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children at his former home in Midlothian between July 13, 2009 and July 15, 2022.

He also admitted to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner by posing as a 13 year old girl on social media and sending various images of children to unknown third parties and requested these images are masturbated over and requested videos are sent to you showing this act had been completed between July 11 and 15, 2022.