Court hears Wester Ross man who targeted paedophiles ended up in trouble with police
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A Wester Ross man decided to target paedophiles using social media to obtain child abuse videos and images by setting up his own account with indecent videos as bait.
But 21-year-old Jake Driver's plan backfired on him when police received intelligence that he possessed the images and officers raided his home at MacInnes Place, Glenshiel.
He appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court and admitted having the material on two devices at his home, many of which were duplicates, fiscal depute Pauline Gair said.
Defence solicitor advocate Neil Wilson said a background report would be required and he will give a full explanation of his client's behaviour when it is available.
Sentence was deferred until June 17 and Driver's bail was continued.
He was immediately placed on the Sex Offender's Register.
Mrs Gair told Sheriff Sara Matheson that Driver immediately explained to police that "it is not what you think" when the images were found in his recycle bin.
"He later told police that he used them as bait to trap paedophiles and would hack into their accounts and change their passwords so they couldn't access the images.
"He said he had blocked 100-150 social media accounts and was doing it because there were a lot of child abuse images being shared on social media and nothing was being done."
Driver also told police he had never viewed or shared the videos.
