A FORMER care home worker who was caught performing a solo sex act outside an Amazon warehouse has been jailed after he admitted possessing "horrific" child abuse images.

Neil Cowan, 35, was found to have downloaded a collection of images and videos so depraved they were described by a police cyber crime expert as “some of the worst [he] had ever seen”.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told that the thousands of pictures and videos included the depiction of the “murdered body of a baby” and the “hanging and torture” of young children.

Cowan was also found to be in contact with a fellow pervert online and the pair had exchanged messages about their fantasies.

Cowan was caught after police raided his home at Douglas Crescent in Longniddry after receiving information that he was in possession of the images last year.

He admitted possessing and distributing indecent images of children between June and August last year when he appeared at the Capital court last month and was remanded in custody.

He returned to the dock on Thursday, where a sheriff said that the young victims involved in the abuse footage had suffered obvious “discernible distress”.

'Made admissions'

Solicitor Cameron Tait, representing Cowan, said that his client had committed the “very serious offence” while he had been “spending a lot of time alone and on the internet”.

Mr Tait added that Cowan’s parents and partner “remained very supportive” of him and his full-time sales job was still open to him if he was spared custody.

The lawyer said that Cowan had been “sent a large cache of images” by a person he was in contact with online and was “under the influence of drugs at the time” of the offending.

Sheriff Ian Anderson jailed Cowan for a total of 38 months and placed him on the sex offenders' register for an indefinite period.

Previously, the court was told that police raided Cowan’s home and seized a mobile phone and an electronic tablet on August 3 last year.

Fiscal depute Chelsea Martin said that Cowan had “made admissions” about his guilt while being interviewed at the Capital’s St Leonard’s Police Station.

The fiscal depute said that the phone was found to hold more than 2,000 indecent images of children and the tablet showed that Cowan had sent some images to another person.

READ MORE: Neil Cowan found with some of the 'worst ever' child abuse images

The court heard that the male and female children involved in the abuse ranged from one month old to 16 years old and the material included the “horrific abuse of a baby only a month old”.

The court was also told that the video footage showed “the murdered body of a baby just months old” and the “hanging and torture of children”.

A Police Scotland cyber crime examiner was said to have described the material as “some of the worst [he] had ever seen”.

Cowan was also handed a community sentence and placed on the sex offenders' register after he was caught carrying out a solo sex act on two occasions outside the Amazon warehouse near Dunfermline in 2021.

On that occasion, Dunfermline Sheriff Court was told that Cowan was spotted carrying out the act by a delivery driver at about 2.20am on June 16, then again by a worker leaving the warehouse at 3.30am four days later.

The shamed support worker told police officers at the time that his trousers were loose fitting and had fallen down, leading him to expose himself.