Re: Another reason...
"There is actually the small possibility that he didn't in fact DL the image. I had a colleague many years ago who would regularly send cheeky emails or download things from other peoples PCs if they left them unlocked as a joke."
No, what you're suggesting might be the case if it was just a single image, but the image trove they found and the browser trail they uncovered would argue strongly for a pattern of behaviour and not a single instance which might be attributable to a prank.