Child porn shame for Bathgate man

Oct 23 2008 by Alistair Watson, West Lothian Courier

A PRISON computer expert is facing a jail sentence after he was caught with a hoard of vile child pornography.

Police found 3298 images of child abuse and 269 movies featuring indecency towards children when they raided Michael Baxter’s Bathgate home.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard last week that some of the material recovered from Baxter’s home computers included images of the most serious level of abuse and featured children as young as three months old.

The 41 year old told police that he wanted “revenge” on paedophiles after a family member had been the victim of sexual abuse but the alleged perpetrator had committed suicide before their court appearance.

Baxter insisted he accessed paedophile websites and chatrooms and traded images over a six-year period in a bid to meet others and assault them.

The divorced father-of-two is now facing a jail sentence after admitting making, possessing and distributing or showing indecent pictures of children and child abuse movie files.

Baxter, of Boghall, was employed by the Scottish Prison Service from 1995 and at the time of the offences he was working as an IT supervisor and trainer at the service training college at Polmont.

Advocate depute Alex Prentice QC said information was passed to Lothian and Borders detectives from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

Officers raided Baxter’s home on March 1 this year and took away computer equipment to be examined by forensic analysts.

The prosecutor said software had been installed on them which allowed others to access some of the material and more than 5000 files had been downloaded by others.

Baxter was not at home when police initially searched his house, but was detained by officers in April and interviewed.

Mr Prentice said: “He stated that he had some degree of expertise when it came to computers and that he was employed in a role that involved that type of work.”

Baxter said the suicide of the person allegedly responsible for the sexual abuse of one of his relatives had a devastating effect on him and his family.

Mr Prentice continued: “He started to access child abuse chat rooms and websites in an effort to understand the situation and engage with those persons interested in trading in child abuse images.

“The accused went on to say that he had gained the trust of three individuals with whom he traded child abuse images in an effort to meet them and commit assaults against them.”

Baxter, who told cops he had an interest in Hearts FC and amateur pornography, confirmed that he had used the identification names of “Flogel” and “Daftie” when going into chatrooms on the internet.

The advocate depute said Baxter agreed he had been acting unlawfully but stated he was an educated man and was aware of the consequences.

Defence solicitor advocate Richard Goddard said first offender Baxter accepted that a custodial sentence would be “almost inevitable”.

The judge, Lord Brailsford, deferred sentence for background reports and placed Baxter on the sex offenders’ register. He continued his bail.