A SEX offender has been remanded in custody after he was caught with images of child abuse.

James Storey, 30, was made the subject of a five-year Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) for a previous offence in 2016. As part of the order’s conditions, police regularly check up on Storey and examine any electronic devices in his possession.

In April, Storey was contacted by officers and asked to attend Musselburgh Police Station to have his mobile phone examined. During a phone conversation with officers, Storey divulged he had breached the SOPO conditions by admitting he had “deleted his phone history”. He also made admissions he “had been downloading indecent images of children”.

A search warrant was issued and his home in Musselburgh was raided at about 1.50pm on April 23 last year.

Police seized several electronic devices belonging to Storey, including a phone, a laptop, games consoles and a PC tower unit.

He was arrested and taken to St Leonard’s Police Station in Edinburgh, where he admitted breaching the SOPO conditions of deleting his internet search history.

It was subsequently found that Storey possessed 39 indecent images of children being sexually abused by adults, including several rated as Category A – the most extreme end of the spectrum.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told that the downloaded images were of boys and girls ranging in ages between four and eight. The court heard that the images depicted children “engaged in sexual posing”, as well as others where children were being sexually abused by adults.

All 39 images found on the laptop had been deleted but specialised cyber-crime officers were able to recover the files.

Storey appeared at the Capital court via a video link from HMP Edinburgh last Thursday and pleaded guilty to two offences.

Sheriff Chris Dickson placed Storey on the sex offenders’ register and remanded him in custody. Sentence was deferred to next month for reports.

Solicitor Matthew Nicholson said he would reserve his mitigation to the sentencing hearing.

Storey pleaded guilty to breaching the conditions of a SOPO by deleting his internet history and data from a mobile phone and a laptop on April 28, as well as taking, or allowing to be taken, indecent images of children between December 8 last year and April 23 this year.