In 2019, the Offender Database reported that William Shovlin, then 45, of the Woodhall area, Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire, was sentenced at Greenock Sheriff Court.
William Shovlin was jailed for one year after hoarding nearly 700 indecent images and videos of underage girls on a laptop in his bedroom. The court heard that William Shovlin deepened his deviancy by superimposing images of himself onto pictures of girls as young as five being abused by adults, creating a disturbing and personalised collection of exploitation material.
The investigation revealed that William Shovlin had used a Virtual Private Network (VPN) for more than a year to conceal his internet traffic and disguise his identity while trawling for extreme material. A VPN functions by replacing a user’s local IP address with one from a remote server, allowing someone in Inverclyde to appear as though they are browsing from a completely different part of the world.
During a raid on his home in May 2018, cybercrime police discovered 582 still images and 95 films, including Category A material, which represents the most severe forms of child sexual abuse. When officers arrived with a search warrant, William Shovlin inquired whether the visit was related to his internet access being blocked due to policy violations, confirming his awareness of the illicit traffic originating from his device.
Sheriff Derek Hamilton noted that William Shovlin showed a significant lack of remorse and had failed to learn from rehabilitation programmes. In addition to the custodial sentence, William Shovlin was ordered to remain on the Sex Offenders Register for ten years, with the Sheriff emphasising that “every image has a victim” and that the length of the offending was a significant aggravating factor.
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