A VILE paedophile has been jailed after spending 18 years collecting more than 45,800 images of kids as young as four being abused.

Simon Luby was locked up for 10 months at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court yesterday (Tuesday May 28) after admitted to hiding the vile haul between various electronic devices in his former Whitehirst Park home.

The court heard the 45-year-old married dad-of-two was a Global Director for K2 – an international windfarm company – but in his spare time he was secretly amassing a horrific collection of child porn, spanning almost two decades.

Thousands of the images and videos were classed in the most depraved category A. The rest were in Category C and B.

Police raided Luby’s home in Kilwinning, at 7am on July 23 last year, whilst his children slept upstairs, following a tip off, and found various of electronic devices, including laptops, hard drives, mobile phones and an iPod.

The court heard Luby pointed out a Toshiba hard drive and a black Thinkpad laptop, saying to officers “If you find anything in there it will be on those two”.

Police Scotland’s Cyber Crime Unit analysed all his electronic devices and found images and videos dating back to September 2000 right up to his arrest in July 2018.

In total police discovered 45,825 horrifying images and 458 videos of children, mostly small girls aged between four and 14, being abused.

The court heard 41,899 still images were found on the Toshiba hard drive of which 1,226 were in the worst category A, 1,358 were category B and 38,802 were category C.

Police then found 458 child sex videos of which 227 were category A, 32 were category B and 199 were category C.

A further 1,864 images were found on a USB stick with even more being discovered on the Thinkpad laptop.

Following the discovery of the shocking haul, police arrested Luby.

He told police: “I’m not a danger to kids or anything. This has nothing to do with my wife or kids.

“I think I have autism and once I start something I can’t stop. I think there’s been a great deal of stupidity.”

Defending Luby, Gordon Ghee said his client was ‘regretful’.

He said: “He knows this has had a devastating impact on his family and young daughter at school and is extremely regretful about that.

“He was a very decent member of society. He was looked up to and was helpful to people. 

“That’s the kind of character he was.”

But Sheriff Elizabeth McFarlane told Luby custody was the only option. 

She said: “I would like to point out that viewing, downloading and distributing (images) is part of the process of child sexual abuse

“Each photograph represents the serious abuse of the child depicted. Those who access that material bear the responsibility of that abuse for creating a demand for it.

“These offences that you have committed, contribute to the fear, pain and torture suffered by children. 

“(You did this) knowing that others have been harmed for your sexual gratification.

“I do not see any any alternative to sentencing you to prison today.”
Luby showed no emotion as he was handcuffed led to the cells to jeers of “beast” from the public gallery. 

Members of Luby's family left the court room in tears. A spokesperson for the family said: "We were there to see what happened. We were not there to support him or condone what he has done in anyway. We will never understand it."

Luby was also placed on the Sex Offender's Register for 10 years.