Child porn teacher pleads guilty

David Wilson used to drive from his home in Paisley to his job in Fife

A former head teacher of a Fife school has pleaded guilty to possessing thousands of images of children being sexually abused.

David Wilson, 48, from Paisley, was head teacher at Auchmuty High School in Glenrothes at the time of the offences.

He was arrested by the operation Algebra investigation, which has led to the arrest of more than 200 suspected paedophiles around the world.

At the High Court in Glasgow Lord Kinclaven remanded Wilson in custody.

He is due to be sentenced next month.

Establishing a link

Wilson admitted charges of possessing and downloading sexual images of children between 16 May, 2004, and 19 December, 2008.

He was arrested during the Operation Algebra probe, which broke into Scotland's biggest paedophile ring.

Detectives found Wilson had communicated by e-mail with one of the gang, John Milligan.

Prosecutor Bernard Ablett said Milligan, recently sentenced to 17 years for a string of child sex charges, was "prolific" in distributing images of youngsters being abused.

After establishing the link between Wilson and Milligan, police seized computer equipment belonging to the head teacher.

A total of 2,969 indecent pictures and movie clips were found on an Apple Mac, hard drives and discs.

Clear expressions of pain and distress can be seen on the children Prosecutor Bernard Ablett

The court heard that more than a 1,000 of the files included the worst levels of imagery of child sex abuse, as classified by police and prosecutors.

Mr Ablett said: "Clear expressions of pain and distress can be seen on the children."

It was also discovered that Wilson made searches for images of young boys on two other laptops.

Wilson also faced a charge of distributing images of child sexual abuse but his not guilty plea was accepted.

The court was told that he resigned from Auchmuty High in February after almost three years at the school.

His lawyer Joseph Barr said the ex-headteacher had a "fairly exceptional career", but that it was "now in ruins".

Mr Barr added Wilson, who now lives with his elderly parents, had only communicated by e-mail with Milligan and had no "direct contact".

He said Wilson had downloaded from a file-sharing website and had no knowledge the images had come from Milligan or indeed who he was.