Alasdair Rae

Alasdair Rae, a 24-year-old high-risk paedophile from Aberdeen, Scotland, was sentenced at Aberdeen Sheriff Court for possessing a vast collection of child sex abuse material and breaching his sexual harm prevention order. Rae, who had previously come to the attention of police in 2020, admitted to downloading 4,058 videos and 936 images of children, some featuring victims as young as three years old. The total runtime of the videos exceeded 16 days, marking one of the largest hauls seen in the court.

Rae's history of offending began in 2020, leading to his imprisonment two years ago after police discovered child sex abuse videos on his iPhone. He was released in October 2024 under a sexual harm prevention order following a breach of prison licence conditions in February 2024. However, on 5 February 2025, officers attended his home and seized three iPhones, an Apple laptop, an external hard drive, three games consoles, and a pen drive. Rae spontaneously admitted to officers that incriminating material was on the cracked iPhone 7 and hard drive, stating, “Be as well arrest me now, there’s stuff on two devices, the cracked iPhone 7 and the hard drive. Check these. They will ping.” Forensic examination confirmed child sex abuse material on most devices, including chats with a boy estimated to be aged 12 to 14.

During the court hearing, Fiscal depute Dylan Middleton outlined the severity of the offences, noting Rae's possession of a cloud storage account for which he claimed to have forgotten the password. Rae pleaded guilty to one count of downloading indecent photos and videos of children, breaching his sexual harm prevention order by accessing the internet, and an additional charge of communicating with a child. His solicitor, David Sutherland, described Rae as a “young man with a deep-rooted addiction” to child abuse material, deemed at high risk of reoffending. Sutherland acknowledged the unprecedented quantity, stating, “I have never seen so many images and videos in this court,” and argued that imprisonment alone does not address his liberty challenges.

Sheriff Craig Findlater condemned the offences as “shocking, both in its content and its volume,” noting the unusual scale for the sheriff court and Rae's prior record. He imposed a custodial sentence of 40 months, with Rae's address given as HMP Grampian, and ordered lifelong registration on the sex offenders register. The case was reported by The Press and Journal, highlighting ongoing efforts by Police Scotland to combat child exploitation in the region.