The man has been sentenced to jail for his offending over 10 years. Photo / File
The man has been sentenced to jail for his offending over 10 years. Photo / File
A blind Scottish man has been jailed for two years after he was found in possession of child abuse content that was “amongst the most vile” that courts had seen and after he took extraordinary action to continue consuming the material as he lost his sight.
58-year-old Guy Kibblewhite appearedat Hamilton Sheriff Court outside Glasgow where he wept as Sheriff John Speir sentenced him to prison and ordered him to spend 10 years on the sex offenders register, Glasgow Live reported.
The court heard Kibblewhite’s offending was exposed in June 2021 when a courier spotted him through his living room window viewing the content on his phone. The courier then alerted police, who went to Kibblewhite’s home to question him.
“Police attended and he was asked to show the contents of his phone and he attempted to open the device, but continually inputted the wrong code and became visibly upset,” Depute fiscal Neil Thomson told the court.
“During a police interview he became upset and stated he had been on a social media app... viewing indecent images of children.”
Kibblewhite, who uses a guide dog and has been registered blind since 2015, had been offending since 2011 and the court heard he took extraordinary action to continue with his crimes as his sight failed.
“While the number of images you possessed were, in comparative terms, not great, the images were amongst the most vile that these courts come across and the offences were committed over a 10 year period,” Sheriff John Speir said to Kibblewhite.
“Halfway through your sight difficulties became worse and it is a matter of some concern that you took steps to overcome these difficulties by relying on others via communication apps such as Skype to narrate what was being displayed for your sexual gratification.
“You went to considerable effort to contact others so your criminal behaviour could continue and you have no insight on the impact this would have had on the victims of child sexual abuse.”
