By Rory Cassidy

A PERVERTED teenager who was caught with a sickening stash of child abuse images has been spared jail.

Usman Awan, 18, was snared as part of Police Scotland’s Operation NOCAP (National Online Child Abuse Prevention).

Officers obtained a search warrant and went to the home he shares with his mum, dad and brothers in one of East Renfrewshire’s most affluent areas.

They searched the property, examining all internet-enabled devices in the house, thereby placing the rest of his family under suspicion.

But their gadgets were returned to them after it emerged the only child abuse images in the property belonged to Usman, who was 17 at the time of the search.

The details emerged when he appeared in the dock at Paisley Sheriff Court.

He was charged with downloading the images between September 2008, when he was just nine years of age, and August last year but pleaded guilty to an amended charge of downloading it between February 2014, when he was 15, and August 11, 2016 - the day of the search on his home - contrary to Section 52(1)(a) of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982.

A second charge that he had also been in possession of child abuse images between September 2008 and August last year was dropped.

Awan, of Giffnock, was found to have downloaded pictures and videos of girls as young as five months old being abused on to his Samsung tablet.

Officers from Police Scotland’s Cyber Crime Unit discovered that a total of 861 illegal pictures and 41 videos had been accessed.

Awan faced the prospect of a five-year custodial sentence but, instead, Sheriff Tom McCartney opted to place him on the Sex Offenders’ Register and make him the subject of a Community Payback Order.

The teenager will be on the register for three years and has to complete 140 hours of unpaid work, as well as being supervised by social workers, as part of his punishment.