Child abuse expert accessed porn

A world expert on child abuse and consultant on internet pornography has admitted downloading pornographic images of children.

A trial is under way to verify whether Professor Christopher Bagley, 66, of Sutton, south London, downloaded them for his work, or for sexual enjoyment.

He claims the indecent pictures of young boys were for research in his position at Southampton University.

As a social science professor, he has written articles on child sex abuse.

The Crown says that the images were made by him...to satisfy his own sexual interest and needs Janice Brennan Prosecutor

Portsmouth Crown Court heard how Prof Bagley had been allowed access to files of child pornography by both Hampshire and Dorset police forces while researching academic papers.

When police raided his home on 24 September 2002 they found four floppy disks of indecent images, and then a further disk at his workplace.

Prosecuting, Janice Brennan, told the court he would have no need to download them for research, and failed to inform the authorities of his actions.

"The Crown says that the images were made by him, not for the purposes of genuine professional research, but instead to satisfy his own sexual interest and needs, using his work as a cover for his own personal obsession," she said.

Life's work

Ms Brennan told the court Prof Bagley claimed in police interview he downloaded the images at home because he had faster broadband internet access and saved them on to disk to classify them at his office.

He also defended using a piece of software called Evidence Eliminator on his PC the day before he was arrested, saying he did not want any of the images to fall into the wrong hands.

He claimed his motive for a lifetime working with child abuse was to expose the hurt caused to children.

He said: "It's to research this in ways to show how children hurt and how that hurt goes through to adulthood."

The trial continues.