A vile Paisley beast could be facing jail time after admitting having more than 14,000 sickening child sexual abuse images.

Twisted James Connick, 43, stored 14,169 of the disgusting pictures on five devices at the Craigielinn Avenue property that he shared with his 78-year-old mother.

The beast admitted being in possession of the horrific images for almost 10 years.

His sick habit began with his first download in 2012.

Connick’s behaviour was uncovered in August 2020 after cops received information a device that was connected to the internet at the Paisley flat contained indecent images of children.

Paisley Sheriff Court was told cybercrime unit cops raided Conncik’s home on April 26 last year and examined five devices – each containing horrific child sexual abuse images and videos.

Cops also discovered a hard drive that contained over 8,000 child sexual abuse images, along with 52 images and videos of bestiality that depicted women having sexual intercourse with animals such as dogs and horses.

Prosecutor Dana Barclay told the court: “Police officers discovered indecent images of children had been stored on the following devices – an OPPO phone, a Google phone, a Toshiba laptop, a HTC mobile phone and a WD hard drive.

“The devices were recovered and found to contain indecent images and the results of the examination were contained in a joint forensic report.

“The OPPO phone had a total of 184 still child sexual exploitation devices.

“These images were within categories A, B and C and featured the sexual exploitation of female children aged between eight and 14 years old.”

The court heard the OPPO phone had 15 category A images, 88 category B images and 81 category C images.

Ms Barclay added: “A total of 14 images were recovered on the Google phone, all of which were category C and feature the sexual exploitation of female children aged between eight and 14 years old.

“A total of 5,041 category C images were recovered from the Toshiba laptop. These images feature a female child of approximately ten years old.

“Four moving images were also recovered from the laptop, all category C and feature the same child wearing age inappropriate outfits.

“The WD hard drive contained a total of 8,928 images. Five of these were in category A, five were in category B and 8,918 were in category C.

“These images were of female children aged between two and 14 years old ,with a file creation date of October 2012 and October 2020.

“In addition, 52 still and moving images depicting adult females having sexual intercourse with animals, such as dogs and horses, were also recovered.

“These were accessible images and were recovered from a folder named ‘downloads’ and noted with a creation date between October 2012 and August 2018.”

Ms Barclay told the court the Crown were seeking a sexual offences prevention order (SOPO) and forfeiture of the five devices.

Defending, Terry Gallanagh asked for background reports given Connick’s lack of record.

Sheriff Tom McCartney said: “These are serious matters and I have to consider all sentencing options and that includes prison.

“However, I’ll make no sentencing decisions today.

“The gravity of the matter is that all sentencing options are available but given the absence of previous convictions I will continue your bail meantime.”

Sheriff McCartney deferred sentencing for the preparation of background reports, a restriction of liberty order assessment and a risk assessment until December.

Connick, now of Waverley Road in the town, was placed on the sex offenders’ register meantime and consideration of a SOPO and forfeiture of the devices was continued until the same date.

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Daily Record – Paisley