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Ex-Doncaster prison governor jailed for downloading porn
Doncaster Prison
A DISGRACED Yorkshire prison governor has been jailed for six months after he admitted downloading pornography.
Philip Oliver, 54, was director of public protection at privately-run HMP Doncaster when he downloaded “extreme porn” on his home computer before making it available for others to view.
The married father-of-two admitted downloading the images in April 2007 using Windows Messenger after indulging in his fantasies in an online chatroom.
Prosecutor Neil Coxon told Doncaster Crown Court that police went to Oliver’s house after being alerted to something he had said in the chatroom and seized his laptop and computer.
He said: “Those chatroom sites involved fantasies about other men having sex with wives.”
Oliver invited another chatroom user to have sex with his wife. He also talked about having daughters of 12 and 14 in the house, whereas in fact both his daughters were adults and had moved out.
He told police: “The fantasy is about somebody coming and having sex with my wife, that’s what the fantasy is about. It’s about giving up control of my wife.”
He also told officers that his interest in chatrooms, which he had started using in 2006 or 2007 and used up to four times a week - sometimes even using his real name, was becoming a “problem” but he initially denied being interested in the extreme porn discovered on his computer.
He said he had uploaded an image of a woman he told other users was his wife, when in fact it was an image of a model he had got from another website.
Oliver had even downloaded team viewer software in May 2009, which allowed other chatroom users to take control of his computer remotely.
The image and nine short films, totalling six minutes and one second, depicting bestiality were not illegal when Oliver downloaded them in 2007.
But when the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act came into force in January 2009 the images were rendered illegal and the judge criticised the former prison governor for allowing others to potentially access the images.
Sentencing Oliver to six months in prison, Judge Peter Kelson QC, said: “This is a deeply troubling case.”
He said: “Your interest in these websites was on your personal computer at home and an entirely private matter to you. But when you installed team viewer software, you gave over control.
“In doing so you rendered yourself, as a governor of Doncaster Prison, vulnerable to blackmail. It’s not hard to imagine the potential consequences of a governor of a prison being subject to blackmail.
“The crime of possession of these extreme pornographic images in the circumstances of this case is far more serious that the actual act itself.
“In your position of great responsibility, giving over control of your computer to people sharing your sexual fantasies in chatline conversations puts the possession of these images in a completely different category.”
Oliver pleaded guilty to two pornography charges. He admitted possessing a still image and nine extreme moving images described as “grossly offensive, disgusting and explicit” images.
Andrew Fitzpatrick, mitigating, said humiliated Oliver was of previous good character who had not used his work computer to download the explicit images.
Oliver, of Doncaster, was a member of the Sheffield Safer and Sustainable Communities Partnership until his arrest.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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