Caithness teenager with collection of indecent child images avoids jail
A Scarfskerry teenager who had a library of indecent online images has avoided a jail sentence.
Instead, Jack Hutchinson was ordered, at Wick Sheriff Court, to carry out 300 hours of unpaid community work.
Sheriff Neil Wilson was told that Hutchinson was aged 15 at the time of the offence which he admitted on indictment.
During June 2024, the Police Scotland National Child Abuse Investigation Unit at Inverness received intelligence that Hutchinson, now 19, had uploaded a video of child sexual abuse material.
Fiscal depute Grant McLennan said: “The IP address was obtained and subscribed to the locus.”
Police visited Hutchinson at his home at Scarfskerry, where they executed a search of the house.

Officers recovered an iPhone from the accused and a further phone was discovered in the house.
Hutchinson provided them with details such as codes and passwords enabling them to gain access to the phones.
Mr McLennan said that examination of one phone revealed 472 child category A images, 528 Category B images and 644 category C images. Phone 2 was found to contain four category B images and three category C images. Some of the images were said to include babies who “appeared to be only a few months old” and the majority “featured young females in various stages of undress”.
Hutchinson was arrested and taken to Wick Police Station where he was cautioned and charged, and made no reply.
Solicitor Fiona MacDonald said that she was aware of the sentence available to the sheriff but asked him to consider an alternative to custody. There were matters in the background report that would be of concern to him (the sheriff) but there was nothing to indicate that the accused would appear in court again, she explained.
Sheriff Wilson observed that there were category A images ranging over “a very lengthy period”. He said that a jail sentence of eight months would mean that the accused would be released in four months.
The sheriff added that he took Hutchinson’s age and absence of any previous offending into account, along with the fact he had cooperated with the police and told him: “I am persuaded, only just, not to send you to custody.”
In addition to his unpaid work, Hutchinson will be required to participate in the Moving Forward, Making Changes Programme, specifically designed for adult male sex offenders and he will also have to sign himself onto the sex offenders register for three years.