DUNDEE, Scotland – A legal technicality — more a glaring oversight, really — led appellate judges to overturn the “extreme pornography” conviction of a man charged with possessing bestiality images.

Steven Ryder, 45, will have to serve a community payback sentence and complete a sex offenders workshop as a consequence of possessing questionable images of children, however. In addition, the court mandated Ryder not be allowed unsupervised contact with animals.

Acting on an anonymous tip, officers discovered more than 2,000 photographs and 500 film clips depicting indecency with animals, along with more than 4,000 images and videos of potential child abuse, on computer equipment confiscated from Ryder’s Dundee home. Ryder admitted he had either created or collected all of the materials between February 2000 and April 2011. In December 2012, the Dundee Sheriff Court handed down a sentence of 20 months behind bars. Ryder appealed.

While preparing to defend in the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, Dundee Sheriff Richard Davidson realized certain sections of the UK’s extreme pornography law were not in effect at the time Ryder was charged. Davidson informed the court of his findings.

“[The law] was accordingly not in force during any part of the period specified in the charge,” Lord Drummond Young noted in his opinion for the tribunal set to hear the appeal. “The sheriff states that he could not see any other basis on which viewing or possessing images of bestiality could constitute an offence prior to the commencement of that section. Consequently, the appellant could neither be convicted nor sentenced for the commission of an offence which had not yet come into being.”

Furthermore, according to the court, the sheriff stated the images and videos of children were not of the sort to cause conviction on their own merits.

“There was no other basis on which the viewing of the type of pornography covered by that [extreme pornography] section [of the law] could be criminal,” Lord Young noted.

“We are of opinion that in this case the most important consideration is the appellant should receive professional treatment for his entrenched habit of viewing large amounts of internet pornography,” the judge added. “This is clearly a very serious problem, but the reports that are available indicate that appropriate treatment is available.”