
A woman who discovered her husband was viewing indecent child abuse images says partners should get the same access to support as victims.
Peggy Buchanan was married for 16 years before she uncovered her husband’s secret.
She had to leave her home and become homeless and wants more help for women like her to be considered victims of their partner’s actions.
They could then access similar support to victims of sexual abuse.
Ms Buchanan discovered revolting images on her husband’s computer in 2012 when she was looking for a menu.
She told the Kaye Adams Show: “I was getting ready for a dinner party and I had menus stored on my husband’s computer.
“I went up to try to find them. I am rubbish at computers so I wasn’t sure what I did.
“I pressed a button and instead of lines with words on them, up came these little green shield shapes.
“I thought he had been fiddling around with it so I thought I would just press on one of these.
Instead of her dinner recipes, Ms Buchanan saw a group of about 9 photographs, displayed as thumbnail images.
She said; “The little thumbnails had images of little boys and men – or hands of men – in the photos.
‘Children come first’
“I didn’t click on them. I had a horrible feeling that if I did I would see something I really didn’t want to see, So I closed it.
“Because I was quietly in shock, I thought the menu must be in another one so I clicked on another one – and that was a video.”
That was the moment that changed everything about Peggy Buchanan’s life as she knew it.
She explained: “It felt like my world – and everything I had known – had suddenly just gone shooting over the horizon miles and miles away and I didn’t know who I was and what was going on.
“It was real shock, complete horror, total revulsion – I wanted to be sick.
“Everything I thought my life was, was a huge sham.”
As her husband was a retired headmaster, and she was a retired teacher, Ms Buchanan knew she had to phone the police.
“I was thinking about the children, not him or me,” she said.
“When I was a teacher, I was the sort of person children disclosed abuse to. I was the one they would come to.
“I was involved in a huge case about a paedophile ring in an area where I had worked long before I met my husband.
“So I knew the children come first.”
An officer arrived within 20 minutes. After showing him the images, he took a note of the time he was seizing the computer.
After that, Ms Buchanan found herself in a situation where she was not a witness and not a victim.
She was advised by police to leave her home because they did not know what her husband’s reaction would be.
She said: “I left the house at two minutes to midnight. I had a car, £100, a suitcase and my own little laptop. That was me leaving.”

Her husband’s arrest and a crime number took several months, so she found it almost impossible to find somewhere to live.
Ms Buchanan was considered to have voluntarily made herself homeless, which made getting housing help from her council very difficult.
Both had their names on the house deeds so he was entitled to come to their home at any time.
She was unable to take out an injunction against her husband because they had no children and he had committed no act of violence towards her.
That’s what she now wants to change.
‘Tip of the iceberg’
She explained: “I tried to move somewhere else and went to the housing office – I was told I had to go back to the town where I was living.
“The support is limited. I only became a vulnerable witness after he declared to the police that I had done it. I was then offered vulnerable witness protection.
“Very little therapy was available, nobody knew what to do with me.
Ms Buchanan found some therapy and is now campaigning for family members to receive support similar to victims of these crimes.
Her husband escaped a custodial sentence and was given community service and ordered to attend a course on online activity.
Child sex abuse prevention charity Stop It Now Scotland agrees there is little help for those who report their partners.
Stuart Allardyce, from the charity, said: “In our Scottish office we had about 60 calls last year from people in Peggy’s situation looking for support.
“There is not enough support for partners and family members, just as there is not enough for people with worrying behaviour online.”
But he said people should not be afraid to come forward and report these crimes.
“What we see in the courts is the tip of the iceberg.
“Any family member can call Stop It Now and we will try to help them through it.”