Galashiels DJ found with indecent images is placed on sex offenders’ register

A radio presenter from the Borders has been put on the sex offenders’ register after admitting having more than 600 indecent images of children on his computer.

Paul Brownlee pled guilty at Dundee Sheriff Court last week to making indecent images or pseudo-photographs of children over a 12-month period up to January 2019.

Sentencing was deferred for background reports, and the 47-year-old was yesterday ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work and given a two-year supervision order, as well as having his name added to the sex offenders’ register for the next two years.

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Brownlee, now living in Langlee in Galashiels, is a former radio presenter and DJ at Tweedbank-based Radio Borders, Edinburgh’s Radio Forth and Wave 102 in Dundee, but he was working as a manager at Specsavers opticians in St Andrews in Fife at the time of his arrest last year.

Police found 663 inaccessible indecent images of children, including 16 category A, rated as the most extreme, plus 30 in category B and 617 in category C, on Brownlee’s laptop computer.

He admitted making those indecent photographs between January 2018 and January 2019.

Brownlee’s defence lawyer, Stuart Hamilton, said his client understood the seriousness of the offence.

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Background reports by social workers assessed Brownlee, a former army cadet leader, as posing only a limited risk to the public and said there are no protection issues.

Sheriff Lorna Drummond told him that because he was a first offender and the number of images was in the hundreds rather than the thousands that he would be spared a prison sentence.

She also informed him that his community payback order is a direct alternative to custody.