A FREED sex offender was caught with the largest haul of child pornography ever seized by police in Fife.

Lochgelly man Andrew Whitelaw later made a bid from prison to get a neighbour to dump a briefcase containing 'the worst possible images of children' in a bid to destroy evidence of his offending.

A judge on Monday called for a full risk assessment to be carried out on Whitelaw which can lead to a life sentence being imposed on him.

Whitelaw (68), was previously jailed for six years until 2004 and ordered to be kept under supervision for a further five years As part of checking up on him Detective Constable Jane Keay and a social worker made an unannounced visit to his home in McGregor Avenue, in February last year.

Advocate depute Leanne Cross told the High Court in Edinburgh, "He was advised that they wished to check the bedroom of his house, at which he became obviously uncomfortable and informed DC Keay that she could not enter his bedroom as his bed had not been made." He was warned that failure to allow access would breach licence conditions and admitted there was a computer hard drive but claimed it belonged to another sex offender and added, "It's not pretty." He let them into the bedroom and showed them the hard drive on the floor, but was spotted trying to hide a laptop under a duvet. More discs were later seized and when Whitelaw was interviewed he said the hard drive had come from a friend with other property. He said he plugged it into the laptop and viewed what he described as "horrific images showing the abuse of children".

Whitelaw was held in prison but police later received information that he had left a briefcase with a neighbour and was trying to make arrangements from jail for its destruction.

Officers discovered that Whitelaw had contacted another neighbour and told him the case held DVDs containing "the worst possible images of children" and asked him to dump it, which he refused.

Miss Cross said examination of the computer gear took place over months and added, "This case involves the largest collection of child abuse images ever recovered by Fife Constabulary." The prosecutor said more than 204,000 were found with more than 6000 at the most extreme of the scale.

A further 3001 video files were also found with nearly 250 of the worst kind, including children and babies being bound and raped.

Whitelaw admitted possessing and making indecent photos of children and attempting to pervert the course of justice Lord Bracadale deferred sentence and placed Whitelaw on the sex offenders' register.