SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing Sheriff Walls made the following remarks in court:

"Darren Scott, you have been convicted of serious charge relating to the possession of indecent images of children between March and September 2024.  Your conviction follows the service of a s.76 indictment, meaning that you tendered your guilty plea at the earliest opportunity.

You have been remanded in custody since 6 September 2024.

You stand before the court today aged 42 with a previous, directly analogous conviction from 2017. That conviction was at summary level and you were sentenced to a community payback order with unpaid work and 12 months supervision. Your previous conviction has failed to deter you from further offending.

In relation to this charge, it is appropriate for me to have regard to the Sentencing Guidelines applicable in England and Wales.  I have considered these guidelines and relevant Scottish cases such as Wood v HMA in deciding on an appropriate sentence.

Charge

In total, there were a significant number of indecent images. The vast majority were category C images. Around 800 were category B and 698 were cat A the most serious category. All were still images and no longer accessible.

However, referring to numbers alone does not reveal the full depravity of the illegal content you willingly searched for and downloaded. I will not repeat the full harrowing detail of the Crown narrative. You should be under no illusion that the children in these images are victims of your offending. The images are unquestionably at the upper end of category A in terms of seriousness.

The English sentencing guidelines suggest that the starting point for a sentence in relation to an offence of this nature is 1 year of custody and the category range is 26 weeks to 3 years, depending on aggravating and mitigating factors.

Social Work Report

You have been assessed by a Consultant Forensic Clinical Psychologist. I have carefully reviewed her report. Although it raises questions regarding whether you may have certain conditions, the conclusion is that there is no direct causal link between any potential diagnosis and the offence. It is therefore of limited assistance to this sentencing exercise.

The social work report is detailed and measured. It suggests a level of remorse on your part and it does appear that for a time you benefited from the work carried out during your previous period of supervision. It records that you would have benefited from a longer period of supervision.

However, it also reports that you had a made an active choice to begin accessing illegal material again, when you knew it was wrong to do so and you knew of the potential consequences.

The report suggests that you sought out such material for the thrill and shock value rather than a sexual interest in children - although that is self-reported and in my view does not detract from the seriousness of the offence. I also note the terms of the psychiatric report, which suggest otherwise

In terms of mitigating factors, you appear to have a level of insight into your offending and a motivation to change. You appear to retain at least some sort of relationship with family.  

There are however significant aggravating factors in relation to this offence:

• Your previous conviction and that this offence is an escalation in terms of the quantity and the nature of the images
• You deliberately sought out illegal material
• The ages and vulnerabilities of the children in the illegal images
• The obvious pain and distress of the those depicted in the images

I require to impose a sentence which balances the competing needs for punishment and re-habitation. In cases such as this, the sentence also has to express public disapproval and denunciation of your actions and to serve as a deterrent.

Had you been appearing from liberty, I would have had little hesitation in imposing a significant custodial sentence to achieve the aims of sentencing I have just mentioned.

However, any custodial sentence must be based on the guidelines I have mentioned. It must also take account of the fact that you plead guilty at the earliest opportunity to a s.76 indictment. This means that any headline sentence identified should be adjusted by one third. 

All of this means that even if I was to impose a sentence at the upper range of what is appropriate, you would be released more or less immediately and at any rate within a couple of months. In this situation, while you would be on licence for the remainder of your sentence, this would be a relatively short period.

I am not satisfied, therefore, that imposing a custodial sentence would properly protect the public unless it was an extended sentence. If I were to impose an extended sentence, this court would not have direct control over the conditions of your period on license.

Your solicitor advocate invited me to impose either an extended sentence (with the custodial element broadly reflecting the equivalent of time served on remand) or a community payback order with the conduct requirements recommended in the social work report.

Sentence

In all the circumstances therefore, I propose to deal with the matter as follows:-

1. You have already served the approximate equivalent of a 30 month headline sentence. Given the adjustment required due to the timing of your plea, this equates to a notional imposed sentence of 20 months, which might be regarded as part of the punishment for your offence. You have essentially served the custodial element of any such sentence.
2. In order to serve the purposes of sentencing I set out earlier, which includes the protection of the public, vulnerable groups and to promote your rehabilitation, I shall impose a supervised Community Payback Order, which will last for a period of 3 years. This Order will have an exceptionally restrictive suite of conduct requirements, with which you must comply. These are:
   1. You must not have any contact with children aged under 17 without the prior permission of your supervising officer.
   2. You must reside only in accommodation approved in advance by your supervising officer.
   3. You must disclose details of any friendships, associations or intimate relationships to your supervising officer.
   4. You shall not undertake paid, unpaid or voluntary work without the prior approval of your supervising officer and subject to any restrictions he or she may impose.
   5. You must engage with community mental health services as directed by your supervising officer.
   6. You must advise your supervising officer or police offender manager of all electronic devices you own which are capable of storing data or contacting the internet and not purchase further such devices without the permission of your supervising officer.
   7. You must permit and facilitate the installation by your supervising officer of remote monitoring software on all such devices.
   8. You must not delete the internet activity, downloaded files, or other records of calls, text messages, emails or any other communications on any such devices owned, possessed or used by you without the permission of your supervising officer or police offender manager.
   9. You must not download, install, activate or use any software designed to, or which has the effect of:
      1. Preventing logs of internet access, webpages, downloads, records of calls, text messages, emails or other communication being preserved.
      2. Deleting the history of access to internet pages or other records of downloads, calls, text messages, emails or other communications or otherwise concealing specific internet webpages accessed, other records of downloads, calls, text messages, emails or other communication, on such devices that are owned, possessed or used by you.

You will be subject of the notification requirements of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 for a period of 3 years.

I will fix a review of this order in 6 months. If there is any breach of these conduct requirements, then this order may be revoked and an alternative sentence imposed.

The prescribed information will be passed to the Scottish Ministers to consider whether you are unsuitable to work with children and vulnerable groups and I direct that this be recorded in the Minute of Proceedings. 

18 June 2025