Eight men face paedophile charges

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7921979.stm

Version 0 of 1.

A group of alleged paedophiles from across central Scotland has gone on trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Three of the eight men are charged with serious sexual offences against young boys and a baby.

Six are alleged to have conspired to gain access to a one-year-old boy to sexually abuse him.

Two have pled not guilty with special defence of alibi, and six lodged guilty pleas to some of the charges against them, which the Crown has rejected.

The accused are James Rennie, 38, Neil Strachan, 41, Colin Slaven, 23 - all from Edinburgh - Neil Campbell, 46, John Milligan, 40, and John Murphy, 44 - all from Glasgow - Ross Webber, 27, of North Berwick and Craig Boath, 24, of Dundee.

The eight men are accused of making, possessing and distributing child pornography at addresses in and around Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee.

Three of them - Neil Strachan, James Rennie and Colin Slaven - are also accused of serious sexual offences against young boys.

One of them was a three-month-old baby when the alleged sex abuse began.

The trial is expected to last up to eight weeks.