A SEX offender who admitted being caught with indecent images in Irvine has been struck off as a carer.

Former trainee football coach James Purdie, 32, was working as a care assistant at the Cumbrae Lodge Care Home in Castlepark Road after being caught with indecent images between November 2014 and 2015.

He narrowly dodged a prison sentence at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court after admitting possessing the pictures in Woodlands Avenue and Dickson Drive.

The Times told back in April how Purdie, previously a volunteer with Clark Drive Girls football team, was found with pictures rated amongst the highest level of depravity.

He was sentenced to 270 hours of unpaid work, three years supervision and placed on a program called Moving Forward, Making Changes.

Purdie, of Guthrie Road, Saltcoats, was also placed on the Sex Offender’s Register for three years.

The Scottish Social Services Council last week imposed an immediate removal order on Purdie, who immediately quit his job after being charged with the offence.

The judgement, released, last week stated that Purdie showed a “serious disregard” for the Council’s Code of Practice and his behaviour was “fundamentally incompatible” with being a social worker.

Purdie also failed to cooperate with the Council’s investigations and the Council believe the risk of repeated behaviour is high.

The judgement read: “The public has the right to expect that the social service workers, in whom it places its trust and confidence work responsibly with service users, uphold the law and do not engage in offending behaviour nor otherwise behave in a way in work or outside work which would call into question their suitability to work in social services.

“By having in your possession indecent images of children and by taking, permitting to be taken or making indecent images of children, this behaviour constituted exploitative, discriminatory and abusive behaviour which was demeaning to the subjects of those images.

“Such behaviour is incompatible with a person registered with the Council.”

The statement continued: “Accordingly the Council considers that a Removal Order is the most appropriate sanction being both necessary and justified in the public interest and to ensure the continuing trust and confidence in the social service profession, in the Council as regulator and in the integrity of the statutory register.”