
Civil servants using work laptops to watch porn and place bets
Civil servants working from home have used their official laptops to visit pornography and gambling sites.
In the past six months at least 16 attempts were made to view pornography or visit bookmakers online using devices funded by Scottish taxpayers, records show.
The figures were obtained by the Scottish Conservatives under freedom of information law and first reported by the Scottish Mail on Sunday.
Since November, there have been six attempts to access Pornhub, six for Betfair and four for Paddy Power on Scottish government devices. Officials said Netflix use was so prolific that discovering how many times it had been viewed would not be cost-effective.
The revelations come after Michael Matheson, then an SNP minister, chalked up an £11,000 bill on his
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Labour should introduce minister for porn, Conservative peer says
Labour should appoint a minister for porn to tackle the wave of 'violent, abusive and misogynistic' images, a Conservative peer has said. Baroness Gabby Bertin, who leads the Independent Pornography Review Taskforce, said that MPs shy away from tackling abuse in the porn industry out of embarrassment. 'We're really British about it so we don't want to have a graphic conversation about sex and porn. But you've got to shout about it as loudly as possible. The reason why we've got into this mess is because nobody has really wanted to talk about it,' she told The Guardian. She is pushing for the government to appoint a ministry for porn to make sure the issue gets addressed. 'You can't leave the pitch on this stuff just because you're worried about being accused of being too strait-laced,' she added. A review, commissioned by Rishi Sunak's government and led by Baroness Gabby, proposed banning degrading, violent and misogynistic pornography. The report, which was published in February this year, urged ministers to give Ofcom further powers to police porn sites for dangerous material. It also suggested banning online porn videos that would be deemed too harmful for any certificate in the offline world. One of the report's recommendations, making strangulation in pornography illegal, has now been accepted by the government. Minister for victims and tackling violence against women, Alex Davies-Jones, said that 'cracking down on the appalling rise of strangulation pornography will protect women and send a clear signal to men and boys that misogyny will not be tolerated'. Recent research published by Ofcom found that eight per cent of children aged eight to 14 have watched online pornography. Boys aged 13 to 14 were the most likely viewers, with two out of 10 visiting adult sites. Major porn sites, including Pornhub, Stripchat and Youporn, have agreed to implement stronger age verification measures, with platforms now facing fines of 10 per cent of their global turnover if they fail to make changes.


BreakingNews.ie
an hour ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Rod Stewart says Britain should ‘give Farage a chance'
Sir Rod Stewart has called on Britain to 'give Nigel Farage a chance' as he revealed how close he came to pulling out of his Glastonbury appearance. The 80-year-old singer backed the Reform UK leader ahead of appearing in the festival's afternoon legends slot on Sunday, 23 years after he headlined the Pyramid Stage. Advertisement 'I've read about (Sir Keir) Starmer cutting off the fishing in Scotland and giving it back to the EU. That hasn't made him popular,' he told The Times. 'We're fed up with the Tories. We've got to give Farage a chance. He's coming across well. Nigel? What options have we got? Rod Stewart has called on Britain to give Reform UK leader Nigel Farage a chance (PA) 'Starmer's all about getting us out of Brexit and I don't know how he's going to do that. Still, the country will survive. It could be worse. We could be in the Gaza Strip.' Admitting his wealth ensures 'a lot of it doesn't really touch me', he insisted he is not out of touch and expressed his support for Ukraine – criticising US president Donald Trump and vice president JD Vance for their treatment of Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelenskiy on his visit to the White House – and Gaza. Advertisement 'It's depressing, what's going on in the Gaza Strip,' he said. 'Netanyahu doesn't realise that this is what happened to his people under the Nazis: total annihilation. And Trump is going to turn the Gaza Strip into Miami?' Stewart said a prolonged bout of flu, which forced him to cancel five shows in the US, nearly forced him to withdraw from a Glastonbury appearance he described to ITV as his 'World Cup final'. 'This time last week I was thinking of cancelling,' he told The Sun, crediting his wife Penny Lancaster with nursing him back to health. 'I have had Influenza A. It's been so terrible. It's the worst thing anyone could possibly have, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Advertisement 'Apart from (Vladimir) Putin. I'd wish it on him.' Stewart told The Sun he had negotiated an extra quarter of an hour on top of the allotted 75 minutes for his set. He confirmed he will be joined at Glastonbury by former Faces bandmate Ronnie Wood, Simply Red's Mick Hucknall and Lulu, as well as performing the song Powderfinger by Saturday headliner Neil Young.


Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
‘Brown lumpy liquid splattered me in Sainsbury's – I want compensation'
Has a company treated you unfairly? Our Consumer Champion is available to help. For how to contact her click here. Dear Katie, I am a 22-year-old soon-to-be graduate from the University of Strathclyde, and I've recently moved into my first proper flat with my partner. To help with the move, I hired a car to collect some Ikea furniture and move it into our new flat. We drove from the centre of Glasgow to the Braehead retail park where Ikea is. We stopped to pick up some quick bits for lunch at a Sainsbury's on the retail park. While we were shopping, a pipe that was running inside the store above aisle seven started leaking brown liquid with clumps, and fell from the ceiling on to us. The majority of the clumps landed just in front of us, as my partner pulled me backwards to avoid getting hit directly. The splashback of the clumps landed in a puddle of what appeared to be sewage. It came into contact with our hair, our face, our skin and our clothes. I have complained to Sainsbury's about this, and it has informed me that if I wanted compensation for my items, then I would need to travel into their store with the affected articles for inspection. I have declined to do this because myself and my partner would need to travel at our own personal expense on public transport, while potentially putting other users of this transport at risk of contamination. I've been told it cannot proceed with my complaint unless we can return to the store. What do you think my next steps should be? – RO, via email Dear reader, I asked if you had the receipt for your shopping on the day, to which you replied that Sainsbury's had already let you have it for free, as well as giving you a £40 gift voucher. I didn't ask for it, but you supplied me with an itemised list of what you and your partner were both wearing on that day – down to the socks, sunglasses on both of your heads and a smartwatch each. You also supplied me with a picture of your socks which appeared to have been lightly splattered with brown liquid. Clearly, you were hoping to be compensated for all your 'contaminated' wearable items. However, the seriousness of the case and whether you were going to be owed anything at all really came down to what exactly this brown, lumpy liquid was. If your hunch was right and it was raw sewage, then this had been a very serious hygiene incident indeed for Sainsbury's indeed, and I'd need to seek reassurance that it had been properly dealt with at the time. However, when I asked the supermarket to investigate, it confirmed that the leak was in fact just rainwater which had collected in a pipe containing moss, explaining what the brown lumps were. This makes sense, as sewage pipes do usually run underground. Although I recognise that being splattered with brown water would have been unpleasant and certainly not what you expected while buying a quick lunch in Sainsbury's, since your clothes aren't seriously contaminated, I'm afraid that I'm not prepared to ask it to do anything further for you. All your clothes need is a good wash, and you can easily wipe down your smart watch and sunglasses. Moving into your first flat together is an exciting but expensive time, and therefore, my advice is this: don't waste your money on bus fare travelling to Sainsbury's to have your clothes inspected because you won't win this one. Just enjoy your £40 voucher and move on. A Sainsbury's spokesman said: 'We apologised to the customer and his partner, after a rainwater leak affected their shop at our Braehead store. 'We covered the cost of their shopping, as well as provided a goodwill gesture and a new T-shirt. We understand they would like further compensation and we've explained how they can apply for this.'