A MUSSELBURGH pensioner has been jailed after he was caught in possession of child abuse images for the second time.

Alan Kay, of Stoneyhill Place, stored more than 20,000 pictures of children being sexually abused on his computer.

The OAP had collected images and movies depicting “newborn babies” being abused and young girls “tied up with ropes, tape and other ligatures”.

He was found to have more than 1,000 Class A images – the worst end of the spectrum – some of which featured girls as young as nine being raped.

Kay also downloaded file sharing software which can be used to share the sex abuse images with others.

Last month, Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told that Kay was already on the sex offenders’ register after he had been caught with similar images in 2014.

At the time the 70-year-old was placed on the register and jailed for 10 months.

Now the pensioner has been jailed for a second time after Sheriff Alistair Noble sentenced him to 18 months in prison. Sheriff Noble also ordered Kay to remain on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.

During Tuesday’s hearing, solicitor Jennifer Cameron said that Kay had problems with alcohol and had been “living in isolation” since his last conviction.

Ms Cameron added that Kay was “ashamed” of his actions and that he had “no real recollection [of his offending] due to alcohol abuse”.

Sheriff Noble said: “It seems to me that this matter can only be dealt with by custody. You have a relatively recent conviction for a similar offence which led to the imposition of a custodial sentence.

“This offence is so serious that this must be marked by a custodial sentence.”

Kay admitted possessing 20,032 indecent images and six movies of children at his home address between March 20 and June 24 last year.

Last month the court heard police received intelligence that Kay was downloading the pictures and films and turned up at his home with a search warrant on June 24 last year.

Fiscal depute Aiden Higgins said: “Officers attended and explained the matter to the accused. They searched the property and seized pieces of computer equipment which were analysed and they recovered indecent images of children on a laptop.

“The images were found on the laptop and had been downloaded by the accused.”

Mr Higgins told the court that the total amount of images reached 20,032, with 1,217 classified as Class A.

Kay, a retired maintenance engineer, also had six movies – four at category A – on his laptop, as well as file sharing software.

The fiscal said the file names Kay had stored the pictures under included “PTHC – pre teen hardcore”, “nine-year-old girl – hard porn” and “five-year-old girl – PTHC”.

Mr Higgins added: “There were a wide range of specific ages between six and 15 years of age in a number of the files.

“The images, both still and moving, mainly feature pre-pubescent female children.

“The Category B and C images were mostly nude or semi-nude girls involved in sexual posing or non-penetrative sexual activity.

“They Category A images showed male and female children being. . . raped by adults.

“Some of the children involved were newborn babies and the movies featured young girls tied up with ropes, tape or other ligatures.”