A Dumbarton convicted sex offender has been caught a second time with indecent images of children as young as four years old.

Benjamin Campbell was found with thousands of images when he was 18 and spared jail in 2021.

But a year later, police found him with an iPhone he hadn't told authorities about. 

The now 21-year-old pleaded guilty at Dumbarton Sheriff Court on January 17, to taking or permitting to be taken or making indecent photos or pseudo-photographs of children.

He also admitted possession of the indecent images.

The offences dated from between December 1, 2021 and April 26, 2022.

The court was told that Campbell was registered as a sex offender in March 2021 and a search warrant was executed the next year.

Police searched his Dumbarton home and found an iPhone that had not been registered with authorities as required.

The device was found to have 69 still images, not accessible but saved in the cache of the phone. There were 16 images of the worst category A level, 12 at B and 41 at C. The court was told they showed predominantly girls, aged between four and 16.

There were also 42 moving images, with 24 of them accessible. Of those, 21 were at the most serious level, seven at category B and 14 at category C.

Police also found two pdfs, one of 28 pages and one of 50. Both had come from online forum 12Chan, one of the most extreme corners of the internet. Each document also had two and one image, respectively, of a girl aged about 12 years old.

There was further a "multi-page endless scroll" document titled: "All school girls are worthless wh*res, c*nts that need raped."

It also had 148 still images of children aged between 10 and 17 years old. There were 49 at category A.

Campbell was previously given a 30-month community payback order (CPO) with supervision and 120 hours of unpaid work in the community.

Defence solicitor Judith Reid said her client had wanted to resolve the case back in August 2023.

But Sheriff Maxwell Hendry pointed out Campbell didn't offer to provide the pin to unlock the phone and it took another five months to get into it.

"He ought to have been willing to provide the pin," he said.

Ms Reid said there was a "major change" in her client's attitude during the CPO.

Sheriff Hendry said: "I'm sure it's been made clear you find yourself in an extremely serious position.

"The court will have to look at every option, including the possibility of sending you into custody."

Campbell is on the sex offenders register and will be sentenced on March 5 once reports are prepared.