Couple caught with photos of people having sex with corpses and sick images of kids

Mark Mason, 51, and his wife Wendy, 53, from Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, have been caught with a hoard of photos showing people having sex with human corpses and animals as well as indecent images of children

A couple were caught with a hoard of photos showing people having sex with human corpses and animals, as well as indecent images of children, a court heard.

Mark Mason, 51, hoarded the twisted material at his home in Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, along with his wife Wendy, 53, with sickening images showing humans engaging in sex acts with animals.

The pair appeared at Dumfries Sheriff Court where they admitted a string of charges spanning between February 2021 and April 2022. He admitted possessing extreme pornography and indecent images of children as well as attempting to indecently speak to six children who were actually undercover adults working to weed out predators online.

She pleaded guilty to possessing and sharing indecent photos of children as well as extreme pornography. Sheriff Kevin McCallum KC told Mason he had never encountered a case which involved corpses being violated in his three-decade legal career.

Mason was jailed for 34 months and placed on the sex offenders' register indefinitely. His wife was ordered to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work, tagged for nine months and put under supervision for three years. She will also be on the sex offenders' register for five years and made subject to a five year sexual harm prevention order.

Sheriff McCallum told Mason: "In 34 years' involvement in the criminal justice system first as a solicitor, then as counsel, then as senior counsel and now as a judge, before your case, I had never personally previously encountered a case where a person was found to be in possession of images of persons engaging in sexual activity with human corpses as features in the libel of that you have pleaded guilty to in this case.

"One hears about such things, but one hopes personally never to experience or to deal with such a case. That anyone would wish to possess or view such images and derive sexual gratification from doing so almost beggars belief, but you apparently did. Why else would you possess them?"

Sheriff McCallum told Wendy Mason: "Whilst it is suggested that you committed these disgusting and reprehensible offences under the influence of, and in order to please, your husband, as is recognised in the Criminal Justice Social Work report, and as common sense establishes, the offences committed by you were not impulsive. They required planning and effort on your part.

"I am entitled to infer or conclude that a person with no interest in such vile material would simply refuse to engage in such activity at all. You clearly did not refuse to engage in such activity."