A convicted paedophile suspected of having possible links with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann was yesterday jailed in Malta for 18 months for possession of child pornography.

Roderick Macdonald, 76, pleaded guilty to the possession of pornographic photographs of children which the police found in his laptop’s ‘deleted’ folder.

On Tuesday, Mr Macdonald consented to his extradition to the UK where he is wanted to serve time for sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl.

The elderly convicted paedophile was living in an apartment at Tá Ċenċ, in Sannat, Gozo, but yesterday said he was not in a financial position to pay for a lawyer. Legal aid lawyer Martin Fenech told Magistrate Charmaine Galea that the police had only found “three or four” photographs on his laptop that had been deleted for three weeks but which had been retrieved.

“My client was under the impression they had been deleted,” he said, adding that this happened before Mr Macdonald came to Malta.

He said the case was not “as serious as purported by the prosecution” who accused him of taking the photos and distributing them.

Dr Fenech also highlighted that his client’s name had already been splashed in the media, saying he had been “prejudiced” and “scrutinised” by the public. He also alleged there was “a lot of pressure” on the police.

The prosecution, led by inspectors Joseph Busuttil and Mario Cuschieri, said the accused had cooperated with the police and had been arrested on October 13, a day after he landed in Malta.

They said even though the pictures were found in the deleted folder on his laptop, anyone with “basic knowledge” could access them, just like the police accessed them without the need of any advanced software.

The officers also said that the accused admitted to the police that he used to download photographs and then delete them when he was done with them.

He also gave the police a detailed explanation about the two sites he used to access and how he managed to bypass the system which usually filters child pornography content.

The magistrate jailed him for 18 months.

Mr Macdonald – who also used the surname Robinson – is also wanted by UK police who believe he can shed light on a paedophile ring possibly linked to the 2007 abduction of Madeleine McCann, according to UK tabloid newspapers the Daily Mail and The Mirror.

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