Pensioner Amassed Largest Hoard of Child Abuse Images Ever Seized in Scotland
A pensioner amassed what is thought to be the largest collection of child sexual abuse material ever seized by police in Scotland, a court has heard.
Alan MacPherson, 83, from Stenhousemuir, was found to have over two million images on various electronic devices after his home was raided in 2025. More than 805,000 were formally identified as depicting child sexual abuse—much of it of the most serious category—while the overwhelming scale of his collection meant much of the material was not examined.
MacPherson, who admitted downloading the material over a 14-year period, was placed on the sex offenders register and remanded in custody at Falkirk Sheriff Court pending pre-sentence reports.
Details of the Case
The court heard that the size of the hoard recovered from MacPherson’s home was so large it had "overwhelmed" officers’ capacity to check and categorise it. Altogether, police seized nine devices—computers, phones, digital cameras, a USB stick, and external drives—and indecent images of children were found on all of them. Five of the devices were subjected to a full examination. Nearly 1.4 million images remained ungraded on just one of his devices alone.
MacPherson was arrested after police identified his IP address as being used to share the material online. The prosecutor, Rachel Wallace, said that in July 2025 he had posted multiple images of child sexual exploitation, classed as the most serious Category A, during an online chat with an undercover police officer. Although he was using a messaging app designed to be anonymous, police were able to trace the messages to his home and then carried out an early morning raid.
On one storage drive alone, officers graded 698,924 child sexual abuse files. The child victims were girls, mostly aged nine to 15, but at least one was possibly as young as seven. Wallace said: "Police have advised us this is quite possibly the largest collection of child sexual abuse material ever seen by Police Scotland."
When MacPherson was arrested and interviewed, he told police he had searched online for years for indecent images of children "for his own personal gratification."
Sheriff’s Warning
At Falkirk Sheriff Court, MacPherson, a first offender, pleaded guilty to downloading, possessing, and distributing indecent material over more than 14 years, between 1 January 2012 and 20 January 2026.
His solicitor-advocate, Stephen Biggam, said MacPherson was deaf and suffering from the eye condition macular degeneration. Biggam added that since the arrest, MacPherson had "continued to go about his business and had not been any centre of attraction in the community, as is his way."
The sheriff took the unusual step of warning members of the public in the gallery that they could step out and return once the case was over, saying matters might be "difficult for some people to hear." He placed MacPherson on the Sex Offenders Register and called for background reports before a further hearing on 8 September.
